MUST READ: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

Okay, we have a must read book in September, Ron Paul's End the Fed. It's due out September 16.

Now comes word that, in October, an authorized biography of Marc Rich is due out, The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

Marc Rich is one of the most remarkable men of finance. I know a number of traders that worked for Rich. All the stories they tell me about Rich point to one thing, Rich has one of the most creative, aggressive and shrewd minds in finance, with a governments be damned attitude. He's one of a kind. People tell me that he kept Henry Kissinger on his payroll, even while he was living in Switzerland as a fugitive. I can't really believe he is going to tell all, but if he tells 10% about his operations, it is going to be one fascinating book.

Here's the publisher's promo that's out on the book:

Billionaire oil trader Marc Rich for the first time talks at length about his private life (including his expensive divorce from wife Denise); his invention of the spot oil market which made his fortune and changed the world economy; his lucrative and unpublicized dealings with Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, Fidel Castro’s Cuba, war-ravaged Angola, and apartheid South Africa; his quiet cooperation with the Israeli and U.S. governments (even after he was indicted for tax fraud by Rudy Guiliani) and near-comical attempts by U.S. officials to kidnap him illegally.

This sure-to-make-headlines book is the first no-holds-barred biography of Rich, who was famously pardoned by Bill Clinton, and resurfaced in the news during the confirmation hearings of Attorney General Eric Holder. It sheds stunning new light on one of the most controversial international businessmen of all time, charting Rich’s rise from the Holocaust, which he fled as a young boy, to become the wealthiest and most powerful oil and commodities trader of the century. From his earliest trading days to the present, Marc Rich’s story is astonishing and compelling.

About the Author

DANIEL AMMANN is business editor of the highly regarded Swiss weekly “Die Weltwoche”. He was educated at Zurich University, UC Berkeley and Fondation Postuniversitaire Internationale in Paris. In 2007 he won the Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Business Journalism.

Rich's book is due out exactly one month after Paul's, October 16.