Millionaire: The Philanderer, Gambler, and Duelist Who Invented Modern Finance

My Review: This is completely the type of biography I wouldn't normally pick up. I bought it on a whim from Amazon, and was REALLY glad I did. Not only is Jon Law incredibly interesting in himself, but the people surrounding him were just as fascinating. The author does a superb job of telling the story without flourish, but keeping it constantly interesting. I absolutely abhor history/biography books that are 50% or more conjecture. It means that you never once can actually believe the author, and so you truly have no idea how much you actually learned about the subject of the book. Then you hate using even a bit of the information when discussing things with others because you don't know if the thing you think you know is a fact or something the author recreated in their own mind. This book has none of that junk.

Absolute bonus points for this book because the author obviously knows her Voltaire. She intersperses quotes and references from Voltaire's own work throughout, and I could tell she leaned heavily on him when creating this biography.

My Goodread's Review