Dave Davies

He wrote a bestselling book about the 2008 crisis called Too Big to Fail.

For his new book, he spent the past several years combing over records of the 1929 stock market collapse that led to the Great Depression.

Sorkin is a business and financial columnist and the founder and editor of the New York Times Dealbook, which publishes a business and policy newsletter, and he hosts an annual summit that draws leaders in business and government.

He's also co-host of Squawk Box, a daily business program on CNBC.

Sorkin co-produced the HBO series based on his book, Too Big to Fail, and co-created the Showtime series, Billions.

His latest book is 1929, Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation.

I spoke to him yesterday.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, welcome back to Fresh Air.

You know, the crash of 1929 has lived in the memories of generations of Americans, maybe not as much young folks today.

But, you know, it was known for stories of stockbrokers leaping out of windows, which you tell us in the book was a little overstated, not so common.

But there's a moment in the book I think which really captures the kind of speculative frenzy that was going in the 1920s when it seemed like everybody was playing the stock market and expecting to get rich.

And this is a story of a British journalist, Claude Cockburn, who's having lunch at the home of a wealthy banker named Edgar Spire.

There are plenty of servants and they're eating a saddle of lamb, whatever that is.

And the lunch is interrupted.

Tell us what happened.

Right.

And they want Mr. Speier, who I'm sure advised them on all of this, to come into the kitchen and tell them what to do, make a phone call, help me, right?

Right.

And for them, the stakes were high, savings that they really couldn't afford to lose.

This was a time when I think you've written that broker ships were popping up on street corners.