Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny
Where to start.
OK. I liked this book. A lot. It's on my regular re-read list.
It features a universe where death and life are controlled by two poles, the House of the Dead, run by Anubis, and the House of Life, run Osiris. Anubis and Osiris cooperate and compete at the same time. Anubis has gotten ready an emissary, who he has been training for a thousand years, to kill his greatest enemy.
Without getting into spoilers, let's just say that things do not go as planned :)
Roger Zelazny wrote this book with an amazing stylistic touch. Many of the concepts he included were later picked up by other writers, like the various prayers spoken by Madrak, one of the major characters, of which 'The Possibly Proper Death Litany' is a fantastic example:
It can be argued that this is one of the most influential Science Fiction books ever written. It certainly is one of the most beautifully written.
Poets In Hell
Good, but...
Conspiracy of Fools is a fascinating book about Enron. Yep, that Enron, the company that killed so many people's retirement plans.
The story of what happened is fascinating. The presentation is good. The writing is good. But I was less than satisfied with the book as a whole.
This is a common problem for books covering current events. The book ends before it should. It doesn't tie the problems at Enron into the problems that brought about the mortgage crash, which are effectively the same.
Also the book doesn't include even the simplest basic charts, which would show how the schemes that were used to move assets off-book worked. The same schemes that the banks used to package up non-performing mortgages, and move them off book so they wouldn't have to record a loss.
But there's a huge amount of historical information in the book, and it is well worth reading, even if it could have been so much more.