I have a friend who likes to say that money is fake. Some sums are so big that they don't feel tethered to reality. Can you envision what a million dollars looks like? A billion? A trillion? Money is fake! I kept muttering "money is fake!" while listening to The Bond King by Mary Childs, which is about Bill Gross, founder of investing giant PIMCO. Childs starts with him leaving the firm and the shock it sent through the financial world. She then meticulously shows how he gained his fortunate and his Bond King title, and then how he lost the firm he created, to the point that I'm not sure why it wasn't obvious to everyone that there was much strife in the house of PIMCO before he left. Childs has had a long career in financial journalism and is now a co-host and correspondent on the NPR podcast Planet Money , which I listen to often, and is how I learned about her book . I had heard about Gross back when I was a living through and reporting on the Great Recessio