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Resurrecting a 45-year-old book, Bill Gates included Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street on his 2014 summer reading list. His enthusiasm ("Warren Buffett recommended this book to me back in 1991, and it's still the best business book I've ever read"-and claims it's Warren Buffett's favorite business book, too) was contagious. With prodding by Gates's team, the out-of-print book was reissued as an e-book by Open Road, and as I write this post it's Amazon's #1 best seller in commerce and #2 in books. John Brooks originally published these business stories in The New Yorker, so it goes without saying that they are well written. Describing the stock market as "the daytime adventure serial of the well-to-do," Brooks devotes the first chapter to a blow-by-blow account of the "little crash" and rapid recovery that occurred in the last week of May 1962. On Monday the Dow dropped more than it had on any day except October 28, 1929. By Thursday, after the Wednesday Memorial Day holiday, it closed "slightly above the level where it had been before all the excitement began." The infrastructure in place at the time could not cope with the overwhelming trading volume. On Tuesday, May 29, "there was something very close to a complete breakdown of the reticulated, automated, mind-boggling complex of technical facilities that made nationwide stocktrading possible in a huge country where nearly one out of six adults was a stockholder. Many orders were executed at prices far different from the ones agreed to by the customers placing the orders; many others were lost in transmission, or in the snow of scrap paper that covered the Exchange floor, and were never executed at all.

The character and career of Sir Winston Churchill are both so protean that it is not surprising that there have been studies of the great man emphasizing innumerable aspects, running the gamut from military strategist and statesman to painter and gourmand. Certainly, Churchill as a literary figure is a topic also well worth considering. What other British prime minister won the Nobel Prize for literature? (It was awarded to him in the midst of his second premiership in 1953.) Interestingly, although it was widely believed that this accolade came to him because of his magisterial history of World War II, Jonathan Rose, Kenan professor of history at Drew University, informs us that it was the autobiography "My Early Life" that impelled the (neutral in World War II) Swedes. Well-researched and clearly informed by great admiration and attunement to its subject, "The Literary Churchill" is simply crammed with interesting facts like this - and not just about his oeuvre and his accomplishments. We find out about the origins of his writing with his discovery of it as a talent and much-needed boost as an indifferent student, his literary and theatrical tastes and his affinity for melodrama.

Throughout her life, playwright and diplomat Clare Boothe Luce insatiably aimed for the top. In "Rage for Fame," published in 1997, Sylvia Jukes Morris traced how a beautiful and intelligent girl, born of humble origins, married a millionaire decades her senior; transformed herself as managing editor at Vanity Fair, wrote her hit play, "The Women," married again, to Henry Luce of Time Inc. "Price of Fame" continues the second half of this amazing story, clearly capturing the successes and pathos of a narcissist infused with shame and self-hate. ("Nobody could love me who really knew me.") Fame Clare now has, but with it came personal loss: the death of her only child; of her brother; the suicide of a close friend; the disappointment in her dysfunctional marriage to Luce, her love and enemy. Their extramarital affairs, along with Clare's schemes to extract millions, is told without censure. Those millions, later bequested to institutions and charities, also significantly benefited women entering the field of mathematics, science and engineering. The book opens with Clare's election in 1942 as a Republican congressman from Connecticut. The only female member of the House Military Affairs Committee, she traveled to Europe, visiting liberated Nazi concentration camps. She crossed the aisle to work with Democrats, and is credited with advancing 18 initiatives, Inc.uding human rights, equal pay, and the rehabilitation of veterans, and the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission. No fan of FDR, she said he had created a nation of "hypochondriacs, introverts and psychotics." Nonetheless, she was a friend of his wife, Eleanor (both were advocates for civil rights).

Alirio Zavarce's one-man show on the nature of something he's termed "rational madness" begins in an airport. He's just flown back to Australia with a prop suitcase, and as the story reaches fever pitch, with the federal police brandishing machine guns and a gaggle of customs officials staring him down suspiciously, he stops the show. He's troubled. There's a divide between Zavarce the man and Zavarce the actor. Maybe that's the wrong place to begin. Things carry on, but it's not the last time he'll stop the show. Loco is peppered with Zavarce's asides, and the whole thing proceeds in kooky fits and starts. Jonathon Oxlade's enchanting set - a towering wall of cardboard boxes - becomes a playground. Sections fall down, some of them contain secrets, and more than a few become the canvas for Chris More's projection design. Zavarce's marriage and the twin towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed on the same day, and this is where his "rational madness" began. Everyone's a little bit loco, and sometimes we have to give in to it in order to get through. He's a beguiling, fascinating performer who's at his best engaging directly with the audience. Sasha Zahra's direction is solid, but there's a gap between the darkness and the light in these stories. These semi-autobiographical tales are told mostly in big print, and the net effect is beautifully polished, but fundamentally shallow. Like The Rabble's Room of Regret last year, this show features a plate of human faeces. But it's there to do more than just shock: it's glad wrapped, and it's a prop in a didactic little bit about the value of things.