Lords of Finance is great I think the first few chapters of Krugman's Depression Economics are also a good guide to the basics of monetary policy (and accessible/ well written)

Lords of finance for macro (and anyone wanting to read about the gold standard)

Lords of finance is a must read. This book isn’t talked about enough imo

a fantastic book

There is terrific prescience to be found in [Lords of Finance’s] portrait of times past . . . [A] writer of great verve and erudition, [Ahamed] easily connects the dots between the economic crises that rocked the world during the years his book covers and the fiscal emergencies that beset us today. He does this winningly enough to make his book about an international monetary horror story seem like a labor of love . . . Mr. Ahamed does a superlative job of explaining the ever-germane way the problems of one shyster, one bank, one treasury or one economy can set off repercussions all around the globe.

Lords of Finance is highly readable . . . That it should appear now, as history threatens to repeat itself, compounds its appeal.