(MONEY Magazine) – You may detect echoes of our current market woes in David Liss' A Conspiracy of Paper, a detective thriller set in the early 18th century as the notorious South Sea Bubble was about to burst. Named one of last year's most notable books by the New York Times--and just out in paperback--Conspiracy is both a page-turner and a historically detailed account of the English-speaking world's first stock market disaster. But why delve so far into the past to write about the intrigue behind overvalued stocks? Because, says Liss, a Columbia University grad student in English Lit, the 1700s were when "modern financial mechanisms came into the popular consciousness."

--SCOTT MEDINTZ