CHESTERTOWN, MD—Washington College President Sheila C. Bair will read an excerpt from her newest book, The Bullies of Wall Street, on Monday, October 19,at 4:30 p.m. at the Rose O’Neill Literary House, 407 Washington Avenue. Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee and the Literary House, the reading is free and open to the public. 

Bair began as president of Washington College on August 1 of this year, starting a new chapter in an illustrious career that includes a five-year term as Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. While leading the agency skillfully through the financial crisis, she earned a reputation as a fearless advocate for the interests of taxpayers, bank customers and struggling homeowners.  Her 2012 New York Times best seller recounting her tenure at the FDIC, Bull by the Horns, prompted Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Steven Pearlstein to describe Bair as “everything you’d want in a public servant: thoughtful, practical, independent-minded—a straight shooter with political savvy who can manage the details of policy without losing sight of the big picture.” 

Published in April of this year, The Bullies of Wall Street tackles the causes and impacts of the Great Recession in language young people in seventh grade and older can understand. In a post for Yahoo Finance titled “Why I wrote Bullies of Wall Street,” Bair wrote, “There are two very different lessons that can be learned from the crisis. One takes us on a path back toward personal accountability, individual responsibility, and success through hard work and innovation. It promises sustained prosperity by rewarding those who produce things of real and lasting value to our economy.”
 

The other lesson, she continued, “takes us on a path of cynicism and profiteering, where we glorify those who make a quick buck on the backs of unsuspecting people and extol those who game the government and taxpayers for their personal benefit. 
I hope desperately that the lesson our young people learn is the first one. 
That is why I wrote Bullies of Wall Street.” 

President Bair’s readingis free and open to the public. For more information on her and her books, visit http://www.bairblog.com/. For more information on the reading and other Lit House events visit http://www.washcoll.edu/centers/lithouse/.