Money To Burn

"Based on original reports and witness statements, Money to Burn tells the story of a gang of bandits who, fancying themselves as urban guerrillas, raided a bank in downtown Buenos Aires. They escaped with millions in cash but six weeks later found their hideout surrounded by three hundred military police, journalists and TV cameras. The subsequent siege and its shocking outcome have become a Latin American legend."--BOOK JACKET.

"A darkly hilarious tale of a federal judge who sets out to rob the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. . . . The story is all the more delicious because first-time novelist Zagel is himself a U.S. District Court judge."--"The Washington Post Book World."

In 1985, tobacco heiress Margaret Benson and two of her children were victims of a car bombing. One year later, her surviving son was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders. Here is the story of what may have been a travesty of justice resulting in the conviction of an innocent man.

For a thousand years across the length and breadth of China and beyond, people have burned paper replicas of valuable things—most often money—for the spirits of deceased family members, ancestors, and myriads of demons and divinities. Although frequently denigrated as wasteful and vulgar and at times prohibited by governing elites, today this venerable custom is as popular as ever. Burning Money explores the cultural logic of this common practice while addressing larger anthropological questions concerning the nature of value. The heart of the work integrates Chinese and Western thought and analytics to develop a theoretical framework that the author calls a “materialist aesthetics.” This includes consideration of how the burning of paper money meshes with other customs in China and around the world. The work examines the custom in contemporary everyday life, its origins in folklore and history, as well as its role in common rituals, in the social formations of dynastic and modern times, and as a “sacrifice” in the act of consecrating the paper money before burning it. Here the author suggests a great divide between the modern means of cultural reproduction through ideology and reification, with its emphasis on nature and realism, and previous pre-capitalist means through ritual and mystification, with its emphasis on authenticity. The final chapters consider how the burning money custom has survived its encounter with the modern global system and internet technology. Innovative and original in its interpretation of a common ritual in Chinese popular religion, Burning Money will be welcomed by scholars and students of Chinese religion as well as comparative religion specialists and anthropologists interested in contemporary social theory.

Based on a true story, Money to Burn is a novel that begins with the brutal murder of a young woman, traces an ingenious counterfeiting scheme that became the funding vehicle for a small town bank in North Carolina, and culminates in the most disastrous monetary crisis since the 1930's. Money to Burn is the shocking backstory that follows two men, Edward Cain, businessman turned counterfeiter, and Mr. Jones, a financial operative who, motivated by his desire for revenge, helps the Bank attain incredible success. Readers will be surprised by the simple and surprising beginnings of the devastating 2008 US financial collapse.

Two boys discover a suitcase full of money and set out on a series of adventures.

In the late 1970s, a pyromaniac runs amok in a close-knit community in rural Norway. Homes are burnt to a cinder, and panic spreads, as neighbors wonder who amongst them could be wreaking such fear and anguish. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, a mother comes to realize that her son is lighting the fires. Born into this time of chaos, Gaute Heivoll is indelibly linked to the arsonist intent on such destruction. By juxtaposing the pyromaniac's story with his own, Heivoll explores memory, loss, and the agonizing separation of child from parent that it is a rite of passage for us all. Written in fluid, luminous prose, Before I Burn is a literary sensation, by the foremost Norwegian writer of his generation.

Some robbers steal a lot of money and escape in a stolen car. Because of terrible weather they have to stop at a farm. A young girl and her brother are alone at the farm. The robbers catch her brother but not her. What can she do to save him?