The Rain on Macy's Parade: How Greed, Ambition, and Folly Ruined America's Greatest Store (1996)

Macy's 2.1-million-square-foot Manhattan flagship may once have been touted as ''the biggest store on earth,'' but that castle of consumerism seemed constructed of sand when bankruptcy loomed in 1992. Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, a Wall Street Journal reporter, centers on Macy's former chairman Ed Finkelstein, who won a leveraged buyout of the chain in 1986. But skyrocketing overhead soonrequired a bailout, with rival Federated battling for ownership (the two merged in 1994). Trachtenberg might compare the ousted Finkelstein to King Lear, but The Rain on Macy's Parade resembles nothing much deeper — or less diverting — than a dishy financial thriller. B