THE RAIN ON MACY'S PARADE: HOW GREED, AMBITION, AND FOLLY RUINED AMERICA'S GREATEST STORE

THE RAIN ON MACY'S PARADE: HOW GREED, AMBITION, AND FOLLY RUINED AMERICA'S GREATEST STORE Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg (Times Books, $27.50) 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. 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 soon required a bailout, with rival Federated battling for ownership (the two merged in 1994). Trachtenberg might compare the ousted Finkelstein to King Lear, but the tale resembles nothing much deeper -- or less diverting -- than a dishy financial thriller. B