I get a lot of emails from PR reps who pitch me story ideas and press releases. Every now and then I find a useful one, like the email from one PR firm that led to me getting to interview Michael Moore – you can watch the interview here. I also get a few book publishers who want me to review their books. Between my full time day job, which takes up 60 hours per week including commuting time, and blogging (which can easily be another 20 hours), it’s hard to sit down with a financial book when up to 80 hours per week is already dedicated to something to do with money and investing. So when this latest book plug arrived I just asked them if I could put up an excerpt from their press release and give a copy of the book away to a reader. They said yes.

Contest Rules

Since I will be giving away a few more books in the near future, I’ll make this a bit less onerous. You can earn multiple entries again, but no need to retweet:

1. Earn one entry for commenting on this post (nothing offensive).
2. Earn one entry for being subscribed to the email updates.
3. Earn one entry for following me on twitter.

So regular readers might already have 2 entries and you can earn a third by leaving a comment. Simple.

• Contest closes Thursday, June 10th at 8pm. Winner announced on Friday’s “Lap of the Blogs” post.
• Winner must answer skill testing question, and they have 1 week to claim their prize after I contact them via email or twitter.

So what’s the book?…

Uncontrolled Risk: The lessons of Lehman Brothers and how systemic risk can still bring down the world financial system

Wall Street has become a place where finance and ethics are viewed as mutually exclusive. The old principles of trust, honesty and putting the customer first, attributes that built companies and America, have been lost. Look at the news about Goldman Sachs and its dishonest dealings. Not too many folks were surprised. Is this the new lower standard of Wall Street? If so, the business foundation of Wall Street is cracking.

Former Federal Reserve Bank examiner Mark Williams has written Uncontrolled Risk as a book on the financial crisis and how to fix the mess. He uses the collapse of Lehman Brothers to tell an important story about uncontrolled risk. The book addresses what risky bets were taken, how they occurred, why they brought down a venerable Wall Street name, the impact to the global financial system, the lasting public policy implications, and most importantly the critical lessons learned.

Williams clearly explains a complex issue about the critical lessons learned and how to minimize such events from occurring in the future. Readers will gain an in-depth knowledge of how the role of risk management, if adopted by Lehman Brothers earlier on, could have saved one of the largest Wall Street investment banks. Readers will come away with a keener understanding of the specific actions necessary to foster financial transparency, adjustments in risk management practices, and changes in market structure.

About Mark T. Williams:

Since 2002, Williams has been on the Finance and Economics faculty at Boston University where he specializes in teaching risk management and capital markets. He is a nationally recognized risk management expert in the field of banking and in the energy trading commodity industry. Over the last 20 years, his primary risk management focus has been on market, credit, and operational risk related matters.

To see and hear Mark Williams discussing the book in greater detail: http://www.uncontrolledrisk.com/.

Good luck everyone!