BUYING GUIDE.

Newcomers and veterans, current and historical ideas meet in our roundup of new audio books and CDs. In audio, Ken Auletta looks at game-changing Internet titan Google, Andrew Ross Sorkin goes behind the scenes of the financial crisis, and John Cassidy explores the historical nature of economic collapse. For fans of the TV hit Glee, with its cast of eager high-school vocalists, there’s a collection of winning song covers. How Markets Fail, and 5 other DVDs to check out

How Markets Fall
The Logic of Economic Calamites

By John Cassidy
Narrated by Ralph Cosham

This book by a New York writer examines the sometimes conflicting role of economists, whose elegant theories of markets and wealth creation sometimes lead to massive wealth inequities, real-estate implosions and never-ending credit crunches.

Cassidy aims to put the current crisis in perspective relative to the ideas that economists through the last century have posited and argues that so-called utopian economics ignores the pitfalls of a free-market economy and especially how real people act. Part of the problem is that people in economics and financial institutions are too interconnected.

The narrator of this audio book, Ralph Cosham, brings an English accent to his reading giving the narrative a perhaps unintentional classist spin. In any event, this is a lively listen for armchair economists, serious investors and regular folks interested in why the financial world collapsed and why it will probably fail again.

Too Big to Fail

The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves

By Andrew Ross Sorkin
Narrated by William Hughes

The you-are-there quality of Sorkin’s bestselling account of the greatest financial crisis of the millennium (at least so far) is ideal for the audio genre since it unfolds like a suspense drama.

The book, a behind-the-scenes telling of what happened at institutions such as Lehman Brothers, the Federal Reserve Bank and the Treasury, and featuring players like Timothy Geithner and Henry M. Paulson, is a thriller minus the blood (but with all of the anguish).

Narrator William Hughes, whom nonfiction audiophiles may recognize from his reading of business audio books such as The Making of Modern Economics and The Management Myth: Why the 'Experts' Keep Getting It Wrong, doesn’t play up the tension in his telling, which is the way to go. What happened was frightening enough without a narrator milking it.

Googled

By Ken Auletta
Narrated by Jim Bond

Ken Auletta, who has written about the newspaper and publishing industry in magazines and books for many years, tackles the Internet search-engine giant that has upended traditional media.

He provides a profile of the company from its beginnings as the algorithmic brainchild of Larry Page and Sergey Brin to its “do no harm” corporate ethos and its growing effect on the widespread availability of all sorts of information in the digital age.

He also examines the explosive growth of the company, particularly its need to continue to grow quickly, its innovations, its moral quandaries and its effect on the culture at large.

Jim Bond, a veteran narrator of audios of business books and thrillers, brings a natural storyteller’s energy to Auletta’s tale.

The Cast of ‘Glee’

Glee: The Music, Volume 2

The hit series about a high school glee club is on hiatus until April, but fans can get their fix of the infectious singing from the cast as it works its way through old and new standards with energy and feeling.

Many people tune into the show for its musical numbers rather than its often-silly plots, but the songs that the series’ creators have chosen for its talented young cast to sing really do drive the story forward.

For instance, the version here of the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic (and classic Tina Turner cover) “Proud Mary” was a paean to those who are handicapped. The students sang and danced (well, rolled) while sitting in wheelchairs just as one of their fellow students, who is handicapped, does all the time. It was both rousing and touching.

Other songs here include a delightful version of Van Halen’s “Jump,” a tender rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” a mash-up of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” from the Police, and Gary Puckett & The Union Gap's 1960s pop hit "Young Girl.” It was sung, of course, to a student who had a crush on her teacher.

The Beatles

The Beatles Remastered

If you didn’t buy this box set when it came out a few months ago, what better time than the holiday season? The Beatles’ music keeps on giving, and the remastered sound here is remarkable. The set is being widely discounted (at Amazon it’s selling for $175.49, a 32% saving on the $259.98 list price).

The set includes everything a Beatles fan could want, from Help and Revolver to The Beatles (White Album) and Abbey Road.

If you’re too busy to download these CDs to your iTunes or MP3 account, Apple Records has just released this collection on a special USB drive, including all 14 titles, remastered visual elements of the CDs, 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, photos and expanded liner notes, which are all Mac and PC compatible. Instant karma.

Tom Waits

Glitter and Doom Live

While some may consider the gravel-voiced troubadour an acquired taste, Tom Waits remains one of the most compelling songwriters and performers around. He’s also one who doesn’t hit the road much.

This record of a tour in 2008, culled from 17 performances, is an immersion in the Tom Waits brand of theater, which is a combination of brokenhearted vaudeville, barroom braggadocio and atavistic rock and roll.

The release is two disks, one singing and one talking. On the latter disk, Waits tells stories – a prose version of the kinds of subjects he writes about in song.

Such song hits as “Downtown Train” aren’t here, but standouts on the disk include the lonely waltz, "The Part You Throw Away," from Blood Money (recorded at a concert in Edinburgh) and the wrenching “Lucky Day,” recorded in Atlanta.

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