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Bill Browder’s ‘Red Notice’

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By Peter Lattman

• March 18, 2015

The grandson of the head of the American Communist Party commits the ultimate act of rebellion: He gets a business degree from Stanford. From there, he goes on to build the biggest hedge fund in Russia. After exposing widespread government corruption, he gets expelled from the country. While he’s gone, the Kremlin raids his fund and perpetrates an elaborate financial fraud. The lawyer investigating the crime is tortured and dies in prison. He avenges his lawyer’s death, exposing a cover-up at the highest levels of the Putin regime.

Here’s the craziest part: It’s all true, as told by that Stanford M.B.A., Bill Browder, in his new memoir, “Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice.” It’s a riveting account — and really, how could it not be? — marred only by Browder’s perhaps justifiable but nevertheless grating sense of self-importance.

A cocksure math whiz, Browder rebels against his lefty family — his grandfather Earl Browder twice ran for president on the Communist ticket — by embracing capitalism. Even so, his affection for his grandfather runs so deep that when his boss at a consulting firm asks him where he would like to be posted, he says Eastern Europe.

So in 1990, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Browder found himself on assignment in Poland, where the government had begun privatizing state-owned companies and selling their shares at ridiculously low valuations. It was his light-bulb moment. “I now knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life,” he writes.

The first third of “Red Notice” recounts the engrossing tale of Browder’s rise to the top of the financial world. Descriptions of his early jobs working for the disgraced financier Robert Maxwell and the highflying bank Salomon Brothers are among the book’s most entertaining sections. Browder is a keen observer of Wall Street culture with a gift for making complex financial investments understandable. You find yourself cheering along as he earns a fortune investing in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, even as he beats his chest after each winning bet. “In a short time, our $25 million portfolio was transformed into $125 million,” he writes. “We had made $100 million!”

Browder soon begins to bump up against rapacious oligarchs and crooked management. But rather than exit the country, like many disillusioned American investors, Browder wages a campaign to clean up Russian capitalism and expose its underbelly. In 2005, the Kremlin bars him from Russia, his assets are misappropriated and one of his lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, is imprisoned and dies after being beaten by eight riot guards.

Unbowed, Browder punches back. He persuades Congress to pass a law in 2012 imposing sanctions against Russian officials said to be responsible for Magnitsky’s death. His actions drive the Kremlin berserk, and Putin retaliates by signing into law a ban on Americans’ adopting Russian orphans. There is a warrant out for Browder’s arrest in Russia, and he believes there is a real chance that Putin will have him killed.

No doubt, last month’s murder of the Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has surely heightened that fear. Nemtsov had championed Browder’s crusade, traveling to Washington to call on the American government to establish sanctions.

“Previously, the Putin regime relied primarily on imprisonment and exile to silence opposition politicians,” Browder said in a statement issued after Nemtsov’s death. “Now, they have started murdering them. I’m sure this won’t be the last.”

The narrative in “Red Notice” moves along briskly, and Browder’s prose is clean. But as he morphs from iconoclastic investor to political crusader, Browder becomes less likable. At times, he is not his own best protagonist and too frequently lapses into off-putting self-aggrandizement when discussing his accomplishments.

He describes his testimony before a United States House committee. “As I spoke, I noticed that the fresh-faced staffers had stopped tapping away at their BlackBerrys,” he writes, and after he finished “several people in the room had tears in their eyes.” He recalls a human rights panel discussion with Tom Stoppard and Bianca Jagger. “I’d planned to say more, but was cut off by an outburst of applause,” he writes. “One by one, people rose from their seats, and before I knew it, everyone was standing.”

“Red Notice” isn’t the first time Browder has told his tale. He was featured on “60 Minutes” last year, and this newspaper and numerous others have profiled him. Browder acknowledges using the media to help both his investments and his quest for justice, but he also appears to relish the attention, even while it comes at great personal risk. Though he has dedicated his life’s work and this compelling book to his deceased lawyer, make no mistake: Bill Browder is the hero of his own story.

A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice

By Bill Browder

Illustrated. 396 pp. Simon & Schuster. $28.

Peter Lattman is a business editor at The Times.

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A TRUE STORY OF HIGH FINANCE, MURDER, AND ONE MAN'S FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

by Bill Browder ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

It may be that “Russian stories never have happy endings,” but Browder’s account more than compensates by ferociously...

An American-born financier spins an almost unbelievable tale of the “poisoned” psychology afflicting business life in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

By 2000, Browder, founder and CEO of the Hermitage Fund, helmed “the best performing emerging-markets fund in the world.” Taking full advantage of the unprecedented investment opportunities available during post-Soviet Russia’s transition from communism to capitalism, a gangland business atmosphere where oligarchs operated with impunity, Browder’s firm became the biggest investor in Russia’s stock market. He owed his rise in part to his willingness to fight back, to alert Western business contacts, to inform the press and to file complaints with government authorities against those corrupting the business culture. For a while, his interests coincided with those of Putin, still busy consolidating power, doing his own bit to rein in the oligarchs. By 2005, however, secure in his authority, Putin revoked Browder’s visa, branding him “a threat to national security.” There followed a series of moves against Browder and Hermitage, including the raiding of the company’s Moscow offices on trumped-up charges of tax evasion and, most notoriously, the arrest, imprisonment, beating and death of tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had helped expose government crime. Browder’s unceasing efforts to achieve justice for his murdered friend and employee culminated in the 2012 Magnitsky Act, a human rights landmark that named and shamed the responsible Russian officials. This well-paced, heartfelt narrative covers the author’s personal life—he’s the son of a famed mathematician and the grandson of Earl Browder, former head of the Communist Party USA—his business career, including brushes with the likes of fraudster Robert Maxwell and swashbuckling Ron Burkle; close relationships with billionaires Edmond Safra and Beny Steinmetz; his dealings on the Magnitsky Act with U.S. senators; and Putin’s vindictive retaliatory measures against Browder and the act.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4767-5571-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORY | BUSINESS | POLITICAL & ROYALTY | WORLD | GENERAL BUSINESS | GENERAL HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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by Bill Browder

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY

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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen

by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal

by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

From mean streets to wall street.

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

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‘Red Notice’ by Bill Browder

This is the tale of an accidental activist. An American goes to Russia in the Wild East 1990s. He makes a pile of money investing in the stock market, runs afoul of Vladimir Putin and his thugocracy of thieving oligarchs, and gets deported. His lawyer is killed.

Instead of lying low, he fights back. He becomes an international crusader for justice. The same skills that brought him financial success — stubbornness, creativity, and media savvy — now bring about an act of Congress.

Not a proverbial one, but an actual act passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Obama.

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Bill Browder, the unexpected hero and author of this suspenseful memoir, is no ordinary investment banker. His grandfather was Earl Browder, leader of the Communist Party USA in the 1930s and 40s and twice a failed candidate for president. Purposefully rebelling against his left-wing family, Bill Browder became an ardent capitalist.

As a young management consultant in London, he expressed a vague interest in Eastern Europe, and just after the Berlin Wall falls, he had a hilarious escapade trying to restructure a Polish bus company. This led to him launching his own investment firm, Hermitage Capital. In December 1995 at age 31, Browder moved to Moscow.

It is fascinating to follow him as he navigates the kleptocratic Russian economy, with its stonewalling secretaries and opaque, if not nonexistent official annual reports. He describes an expatriate life both odd and mundane (Hermitage uses secondhand picnic tables as desks); dangerous (Browder gets bodyguards after he publicly protests when Russian oligarchs start to rip off minority shareholders like himself); and, at times, hedonistic (parties featured caviar and champagne and “the next thing you knew, some slender vixen with perfect lips and mysterious eyes was wrapping herself around you as your mind calculated where the nearest bed — or private room of any kind — was”).

But most of the story is about finance, revolving around things like valuation anomalies and share dilutions, and all of it comes surprisingly alive in Browder’s vivid, if sometimes breathless storytelling. Hermitage Capital started with $25 million under management; it rose to more than $1 billion in 1997; crashed to $100 million in 1998; and a few years later skyrocketed $4.5 billion. Browder became the largest foreign investor in the country

Then in 2005 while flying back from London, Browder was detained at a Moscow airport for 15 hours and expelled from Russia with no explanation.

Here “Red Notice’’ takes a dark turn. Moscow doesn’t stop at kicking him out. Law enforcement and tax officials try to steal his assets with arbitrary tax claims (after his expulsion, Browder stealthily sells all of Hermitage’s shares in Russian companies). They take over Hermitage’s shell company and request and receive a fake tax refund of $230 million.

After trumping up criminal charges against Browder — now in London — they ask Interpol to issue a “red notice,” an international arrest warrant, for him. Interpol refuses. Moscow convicts him of tax evasion in absentia. His Russian lawyers fight these absurd, almost Kafkaesque developments. The government imprisons one of them, a thirty-something tax attorney named Sergei Magnitsky who is tortured and in 2009 killed in detention.

An underlying thread of “Red Notice’’ is that to win and to win big, you have to know how to work the media-industrial complex. During his decade in Moscow, whenever he discovered something shady happening to a company he had invested in, Browder researched and cobbled together a dossier and then shared it with journalists to bring pressure for changes.

This strategy, which proved effective in business, also works when he is looking to punish his lawyer’s killers. Browder the investor morphs into Browder the human rights activist. He comes to Washington and lobbies hard, pulling out his Rolodex and getting meetings with key people. He pushes stories to the press and creates YouTube videos about the corrupt Russian civil servants who on small salaries manage to buy posh apartments and vacation overseas.

In December 2012, President Obama signs the Magnitsky Act: It bans 18 Russian officials responsible for Magnitsky’s death from entering the United States and freezes their assets. You might remember this measure because right after it became law, Russia retaliated by forbidding American families from adopting Russian children.

Browder’s media skills are also in evidence in the blurbs for “Red Notice,’’ as he manages to assemble an impressively eclectic, all-star cohort including Senator John McCain, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, biographer Walter Isaacson, playwright Tom Stoppard, and two members of feminist Russian rock band Pussy Riot.

It is a wonder Michael Lewis didn’t blurb it. “Red Notice’’ at the beginning is strikingly similar to Lewis’s first book, “Liar’s Poker’’: the rake’s progress of a young innocent who discovers a lot of dog-eat-dog avarice, uncouth language, and ill-tempered vice presidents in the financial world. Browder even works for a time at the same notorious firm that Lewis did, Salomon Brothers.

Browder is a banker not a writer, so you can’t expect his memoir to be Lewis-like in detail or control. One small, but obvious note of tone deafness. Underneath the drama of his career is a rarefied private life. There is a continual drumbeat of receptions at Davos, hikes in Cornwall, a “lovely brunch at the fifth-floor restaurant at Harvey Nichols” in London and trips to Cape Town, Lake Como, Crete, Paris and the south of France. It seems that every time there is a crisis at work, Browder is vacationing at a five-star hotel. It isn’t surprising, but after a while it feels like boorish place-dropping.

But there has been a heavy price paid for such luxuries. Browder dedicates the book to Magnitsky, “the bravest man I’ve ever known.” You get the sense that Browder is still reeling from his lawyer’s death, and this book, like all the lobbying he did for the Magnitsky act, is another way to honor his memory.

James Zug is a Globe correspondent based in Wilmington, Del. He can be reached at [email protected]

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Red Notice: How I Became Putin's No. 1 enemy by Bill Browder, book review

Investor-turned-activist bill browder's exposé is a cautionary tale of a regime's fury, article bookmarked.

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A lot of books these days claim to lift the lid on the dark arts of the men in the Kremlin. Black deeds on Red Square are hot stuff in publishing. Just like the Tudors, there's always some new angle.

However, many of these peeks inside the Kremlin are samey. They start with a cover of a Romanov eagle, or a shot of Moscow taken from a sinister angle and segue into a cautionary tale of how the unwary author fell in and out of love with Mother Russia. At first sight, Bill Browder's book is just another exposé. And, it is hard at first to warm to the author, a turbo-charged capitalist who roared off east in the hunt for rich pickings in the rubble of Soviet communism.

By the end I was hooked, however. Browder's book is a real thriller. It also helps that he has packed two very different stories into one set of covers. The first, less interesting, tale is about a beady-eyed investor landing in the chaos of just-post-communist Russia and making a fortune by buying up underpriced assets whose value later soared. This part is instructive only in the sense that I now understand why so many Russians loathe Westerners. Act II veers off in a different direction, however. For a while, Vladimir Putin's clique put up with Browder's money-spinning fund – and with his complaints about the more flagrant crimes of the so-called oligarchs. But once Putin had dealt with the oligarchs who challenged his authority, the rest continued operating their scams under a kind of franchise, which is when Browder ceased to be a useful whistleblower and became a nuisance.

As the storm clouds gathered, Browder made his exit from Russia and cannily funneled out most of his investors' money at the same time. Putin's goons charged around, raiding banks and offices, searching for cash that was no longer there. Enraged to find the cupboard bare, they arranged a clever heist. After a tax demand for several hundred million dollars was slapped on Browder's fund, they got the corrupt tax office to funnel them the money. Getting their hands on this mega $230m "refund" was pure robbery. The tax demand was fraudulent and the money came out of the Russians' own pockets. Browder cried foul but was back in London by then. It was his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who bore the brunt of the regime's fury – with his life – for exposing the way a favoured few had a licence to plunder the many.

What happened to Magnitsky – a naïve patriot who could not accept that "his" government would punish him for exposing an obvious crime – is heart-rending. Having disliked Browder to begin with, I was cheering him on as he retold his dogged fight to bring the fate of his murdered, gentle but stubborn lawyer to international attention. Clearly, you need deep pockets if you are going to take on the Kremlin and win. Russia has been described as a state that constantly wages war on its own people. Unfortunately, this book suggests that this harsh-sounding judgement is an accurate one.

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BookBrowse Reviews Red Notice by Bill Browder

Summary  |  Excerpt  |  Reviews  |  Beyond the book  |  Read-Alikes  |  Genres & Themes  |  Author Bio

A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice

by Bill Browder

Critics' Opinion:

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• Biography & Memoir
• History, Current Affairs and Religion
• Russia (North Asia)

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An exposé of corruption in the Russian government turns into a high-stakes game with potentially dangerous implications for the author, as outlined in this gripping non-fiction account.

The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 opened new doors to foreign investment. Bill Browder, a young and aspiring entrepreneur, sought to take advantage of the emerging Russian markets and so in 1996 formed Hermitage Capital Management, an investment and asset management firm focused on the country's economy. Red Notice chronicles his career as he made and lost fortunes and eventually ended up on the wrong side of some very powerful men. The book is really comprised of two parts. The first 150 pages or so relate Browder's adventures (and misadventures) as he established himself in the world of high finance. Told with a self-deprecating charm and sense of humor, the story of the author's formative years is involving without becoming too technical for the layperson. It's exceptionally entertaining and as the monetary stakes rise to astronomical levels, the narrative starts to resemble a high-speed fictional thriller. It's rare that I'd call a non-fiction account a page-turner, but in this case the description is apt. The second part of the book becomes darker as Browder describes how his firm began uncovering corruption in the financing of Russian corporations, which benefited a small cadre of officials at the expense of the country's citizens. As the author and his legal team exposed this exploitation, their actions had increasingly serious repercussions, eventually resulting in the incarceration, torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky, one of Hermitage's lawyers. Browder subsequently decided to enlist the help of American politicians to raise awareness of the ongoing human rights abuses perpetrated by the Russian government - an effort that continues today. This section is as engrossing as the first half in spite of the somewhat slow pace as the author navigates the complexities of the U.S. political scene. Although Red Notice is set firmly in the realm of finance and politics, Browder successfully weaves a human element into the tapestry to create a truly moving tribute to Magnitsky and his family. My attention was also completely absorbed by the author's straightforward storytelling and I appreciated his ability to present complicated financial and political topics in a way that was both accessible and interesting. For example, I remember learning the complex path an idea takes on its way to becoming a law - and being bored to tears by the process, in high school civics class. Browder covers this territory with such a personal slant and so much emotion that it's more like following a sporting event; I found myself inwardly cheering as each hurdle was overcome. I generally approach first-person accounts with a healthy amount of skepticism, since naturally the author's personal "spin" comes into play, and often readers are getting only one side of the story. However, as the book progresses it becomes clear that the circumstances Browder portrays have been thoroughly vetted by both politicians and journalists, and as a result the account leaves little room for doubt that events occurred as described. I did enjoy the book – very much, in fact – but at the same time, as a reader, I felt a little bit used. As the narrative moves along, it begins to resemble a high-stakes chess match, with each side making a move calculated to figuratively inflict damage on the opponent. It's not to say that Browder's crusade is unjustified in any way, but this story feels like his next step in upping the ante, and that by reading it I've become an unwilling participant in someone else's battle. This impression may be exacerbated by the sense that the conflict isn't resolved - that there's more to come - and so the book feels premature in some respects. High finance and politics may not be among many readers' first choices when making a non-fiction selection, so I do wonder what type of audience Red Notice will attract. I hope that it will bring people out of their comfort zones, though, as it's a compelling narrative that deserves a wide readership. It's accessible enough that people who generally prefer fiction will almost certainly find that it will keep them entertained, and the subject matter is important enough that it will likely resonate with those who prefer books about social issues.

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A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice

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About The Book

About the author.

Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005. Since 2009, when his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was murdered in prison after uncovering a $230 million fraud committed by Russian government officials, Browder has been leading a campaign to expose Russia’s endemic corruption and human rights abuses. Before founding Hermitage, Browder was vice president at Salomon Brothers. He holds a BA in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Product Details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 20, 2015)
• Length: 416 pages
• ISBN13: 9781476755748

Browse Related Books

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• Biography & Autobiography > General

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Raves and Reviews

"Hard to put down . . . Red Notice is part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir."

– Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times

“Reads like a classic thriller, with an everyman hero alone and in danger in a hostile foreign city . . . but it’s all true.”

– Lee Child, bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series

"The first half of Red Notice traces Browder’s improbable journey from prep-school washout through college, business school, and a series of consulting and Wall Street jobs before becoming Russia’s largest foreign investor....This book-within-a-book does for investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union what Liar’s Poker did for our understanding of Salomon Brothers, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s. Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making Red Notice an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books."

– Norman Pearlstine, Fortune

"The story of Sergei Magnitsky's life and death is a shocking true-life thriller, and Bill Browder was the man to write it."

– Tom Stoppard

“In Red Notice , Bill Browder tells the harrowing and inspiring story of how his fight for justice in Russia made him an unlikely international human rights leader and Vladimir Putin's number-one enemy. It is the book for anyone interested in understanding the culture of corruption and impunity in Putin's Russia today, and Browder’s heroic example of how to fight back.”

– Senator John McCain

"This book reads like a thriller, but it's a true, important, and inspiring real story. Bill Browder is an amazing moral crusader, and his book is a must-read for anyone who seeks to understand Russia, Putin, or the challenges of doing business in the world today."

– Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and The Innovators

"A fascinating and unexpected story."

– Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie

"Browder’s true story is a heart-in-your-throat page turner, and the only close-up look I know of what it’s like to take on Putin. It is also a moving account of a man who found his calling, and ended up winning in the end."

– Bryan Burrough, co-author of Barbarians at the Gate and author of Public Enemies and The Big Rich

"A fascinating, heart-stopping account of how to take on Putin--and win. It's exciting to read about Browder's roller-coaster ride to wealth in Russia, and to learn how his compassion for Sergei Magnitsky, his murdered lawyer, inspired his memorable struggle against the venal apparatchiks of a corrupt state. This is the gripping--and absolutely true--story behind the Magnitsky Law, a signal advance in human rights."

– Geoffrey Robertson, human rights lawyer and author of Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle For Global Justice

"This indispensable look at the brutal realities of the Putin regime is of even greater relevance thanks to Bill Browder’s unique expertise and personal experience inside the belly of the beast.”

– Garry Kasparov, Chess Grandmaster and author of How Life Imitates Chess

"Bill Browder has become one of the most sincerely hated men in the Kremlin over the years--and that is something to be incredibly proud of. . . . This book shows the difference that one person can make when they refuse to back down, as told by a fellow soldier in the battle to hold Putin to account."

– Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina, members of Pussy Riot

"Browder’s narrative lays out in vivid detail the often murky mechanisms of Russia’s kleptocratic economy, culminating in an engrossing account of what would surely be the heist of the century were it not so representative of business as usual. It’s also a chilling, sinister portrait of a society in which the rule of law has been destroyed by those sworn to enforce it. The result is an alternately harrowing and inspiring saga of appalling crime and undeserved punishment in the Wild East."

– Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An almost unbelievable tale . . . well-paced, heartfelt . . . It may be that ‘Russian stories never have happy endings,’ but Browder's account more than compensates by ferociously unmasking Putin's thugocracy.”

– Kirkus Reviews

"[Browder's] freewheeling, snappy book describes the meteoric rise, and disastrous fall, of a buccaneer capitalist who crossed the wrong people and paid a steep price. . . The high stakes make for a zesty tale."

– New York Times

“[A] riveting account of Browder’s journey through the early years of Russian capitalism….Begins as a bildungsroman and ends as Greek tragedy…. ‘Russian stories never have happy endings,’ Magnitsky tells Browder, in the book’s most memorable line. Perhaps not, but they do have inspiring ones.”

– The Washington Post

“A swashbuckling story that’s been justly compared with Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker .”

– Vulture.com

“In his new book, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice, Bill Browder writes the way he talks—which is always a good strategy. His autobiography is bracing, direct and honest, with only a little less swearing than you encounter in person. It is both a political thriller and an argument for morality in foreign policy that he could never have expected to make when he began his roaring career in finance.”

– The Daily Beast

“Bill Browder, the unexpected hero and author of this suspenseful memoir, is no ordinary investment banker. . . . It is fascinating to follow him as he navigates the kleptocratic Russian economy. . . Most of the story is about finance, revolving around things like valuation anomalies and share dilutions, and all of it comes surprisingly alive."

– Boston Globe

"I don’t know anything about investment banking except what Browder has taught me in Red Notice , yet as a reader I was fully engaged by the book’s monumental presentation of the risks, rewards, and personal and financial dangers of doing business in Russia....An unusually affecting book...What Browder says he intends to do now is to 'carry on creating a legacy for Sergei [Magnitsky] and pursuing justice for his family.' A book as resounding as Red Notice may be a step in that direction."

– Christian Science Monitor

"It's a riveting account--and really, how could it not be?...Engrossing."

– The New York Times Book Review

“An impassioned personal broadside against the Kremlin.”

– Financial Times

“A jaw-dropping account.”

– The Bookseller (UK)

“A sizzling account of Mr. Browder’s rise, fall and metamorphosis from bombastic financier to renowned human-rights activist."

– The Economist (UK)

"Rattling through the high-finance world of New York and London, and then on to the seedier side of life in Moscow, Red Notice sometimes stretches credulity. But just as Browder really is a hedge fund manager turned human rights activist, so this story of courage combined with a dash of obsessiveness is about the real here and now. . . . He reminds us that heroism sometimes lies in unlikely places. Browder deserves our respect."

– The Independent (UK)

“An unrelenting parable of how Russia’s rulers cheat and harm their citizens…a very Russian tale, as well as an important one.”

– The Spectator (UK)

“A fascinating exposé.”

– The Guardian (UK)

"A tale that makes the dirty dealings of House of Cards look like Snow White."

– The Toronto Star

“The financial thriller book category just met its match.”

– Pensions and Investments

“Riveting…Browder’s story of investing bravado turns into a thriller as compelling as any John le Carré spy novel.”

– Institutional Investor

“A scathing indictment of Putin’s brutal kleptocracy.”

– Value Walk

“A gripping read…fascinating.”

– Management Times (UK)

“Fast-paced… It is a story worth reading for anyone interested in Russia, but also for those contemplating business or life opportunities in regions where Western ethics do not apply.”

– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Browder's book is, to my knowledge, the first unveiling of the intrinsically mafia-like nature of Putinism in all its breathtaking scope and horror.”

– The Huffington Post

“Red Notice is a dramatic, moving and thriller-like account of how Magnitsky’s death transformed Browder from hedge-fund manager to global human rights crusader.”

– The Guardian (US edition)

"Read this book in two days. Could not put it down.”

– Marney Rich Keenan, The Detroit News

"A frightening account of corruption and murder and deceit at the highest levels. . . . A fascinating report that reads more like a mystery thriller."

– Boston Herald

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Watching the Daisies

Book review: red notice by bill browder.

Reading and reviewing books is a key part of being an author – crucial for improving our craft, and perhaps positive Karma?

In 2019, I read and reviewed 62 books for my Goodreads Challenge . My reviews were also posted on Amazon and Bookbub.

My favourite genres include inspirational memoirs, travel, environmental awareness, self help and crime thrillers.

Red Notice was my favourite read from last year. It is an inspirational memoir, but it reads rather like a John Le Carré spy thriller!

It also showcases the power we all have within us to promote positive change.

“Part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir.” — The New York Times

“[ Red Notice ] does for investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union what  Liar’s Poker  did for our understanding of Salomon Brothers, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s. Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making  Red Notice  an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books” ( Fortune ).

This is a story about an accidental activist. Bill Browder started out his adult life as the Wall Street maverick whose instincts led him to Russia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, where he made his fortune.

Along the way he exposed corruption, and when he did, he barely escaped with his life. His Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky wasn’t so lucky: he ended up in jail, where he was tortured to death. That changed Browder forever. He saw the murderous heart of the Putin regime and has spent the last half decade on a campaign to expose it. Because of that, he became Putin’s number one enemy, especially after Browder succeeded in having a law passed in the United States—The Magnitsky Act—that punishes a list of Russians implicated in the lawyer’s murder. Putin famously retaliated with a law that bans Americans from adopting Russian orphans.

A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade,  Red Notice  is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life.

Bill Browder recounts his own journey as a rebellious young man from an academic family, to the creation of a hugely successful investment fund, built through scrupulous research of undervalued Russian public companies. Unfortunately, he and his team made many very powerful enemies in the process, which eventually led to the arrest, imprisonment, torture and death of young lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The author relentlessly campaigned for his friend Sergei, who was a modest but tireless investigator of the truth. The Magnitsky Act was signed into law in December 2012 by President Barack Obama. Since then it has been enacted in many other countries against human rights offenders, by freezing their assets and curtailing travel opportunities. If you are interested in human rights issues Red Notice is a must read.

Your Favourite Books

What was your favourite read of 2019? Please share.

Brigid  P. Gallagher is a  retired natural medicines therapist, passionate organic gardener and author of  “Watching the Daisies- Life lessons on the Importance of Slow,”  a holistic memoir dedicated to the art of mindfulness and healing from debilitating illness.

She lives in Donegal, Ireland –  an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/r5GCjaetgZk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/watchingthedai1

Facebook: https://facebook.com/watchingthedaisies/

Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/author/show/16119226.Brigid_P_Gallagher

30 comments

An important part of being a writer is reading and reviewing. That is a profound statement which I agree with. This book sounds highly interesting, I enjoy mysteries and thrillers too. My favourite read of 2019 is hard to pick as I read many books. I’d say The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin was most memorable. A story for young readers which throws light on how adults are perceived and how science can help find answers to our urgent questions. Nice review Brigid, a book I will put on my list.

Like Liked by 2 people

The Thing About Jellyfish is a terrific title. It sounds very inviting. I just finished John le Carre’s autobiography The Pigeon Tunnel. It was very enlightening.

Like Liked by 1 person

Ohhhh that is so true Brigid “Reading and reviewing books is a key part of being an author ” I find myself always reviewing while I’m reading, looking at structure and words in a way that I wouldn’t if I wasn’t a writer. In the last couple of years i haven’t read many books. My intent this year is to get back to my reading books, I have however been reading a lot of email content, I can’t seem to stick with reading a book, however I did read Pam Grout’s book E2 and I’m not a really good reviewer but I’ll say that the author goes on to prove that our thoughts do create our reality. Thanks for the review of this book, very interesting.

I think some readers are shy about leaving written reviews, but a sentence or two is all that is needed. It gives authors such a boost to know what their readers think. I leave mine on Amazon, Goodreads and BookBub. Happy reading Masha.

Fabulous post

Thank you. I hope it inspires readers to leave more reviews, and also to realise that one person speaking out in the world can instigate momentous change.

Wow! Brigid, I am in awe of your 62 books which you reviewed last year! That is impressive and how lovely of you to take the time and effort to share all these books! ‘Red Notice’ piques my interest and you’ve written an excellent review of an unusual book. One to add to my list! Happy Reading & Reviewing … and it’s good to remind authors everywhere of the importance of both! 😀

Thank you Annika. It is a terrific book. I love reading both traditionally published and Indie authors. There is such great talent that is not always recognised. Many authors are shy by nature, and reviews give everyone a boost.

Excellent and captivating review, Brigid. Poor Sergei to be killed just because you point out what loopholes are going on at the top brass in any country. The book sounds lovely. Happy reading and reviewing.

Thank you Kamal. Yes, he was a very brave man. One person speaking out created such momentous change. It is very inspiring.

This sounds like a fantastic read! It does inspire us readers to leave reviews for our favorite books 💗

Thank you Lisa. I think a lot of people are shy about writing reviews, but it means so much to authors. A couple of sentences is all it takes. x

Gosh, 62 books is an impressive tally, Brigid. You have prompted me, as your thoughtful review of Bill’s book reminded me that I read it last year. A story that stayed with me and I wept towards the end, especially knowing that it was true. Such courage on the part of both men and all involved in highlighting Putin’s Russia. I will leave a review for him. I have a much more structured plan for reading and reviewing this year. Thank you for this post. ❤

Thank you Jane. It was such an inspiring book. If people don’t speak out nothing will change. I hope many more have the courage to do so. Happy reading.

I just checked. I left a review for Bill on Amazon back in 2018 and have just added it on Goodreads. Yes, it takes huge courage to speak out. ❤

Wow, this sounds like a must-read Brigid! When I hear of some of the types of corruption that go on, I think, “surely that can’t really happen” and yet it does…. It’s so important for these things to be brought into the light. Thank you for giving me another book to put on my TBR list.

Thank you Terri. This book is an edge of the seat read. Sadly, very few people can speak out, such can be the cost on their lives.

As always, insightful. Thanks for taking the time to share.

Thank you Laura. Always a pleasure.

This sounds good. I have studied Russia a lot, as the Soviet Union and under the Tsars (before ‘red’ identified it. This sounds good.

Thank you Jacqui. It is edge of the seat reading. Excellent.

This sounds interesting, Brigid. I could see this being made into a movie 🙂

Yes. it would make a terrific movie Jacquie.

Sounds like an exciting book, Brigid. It’s interesting how some people actually live these “thriller-material” lives. You did a lot of reading last year. Thanks for sharing your favorite!

Yes, I do not know how they manage, but such a lot of good came out of this particular journey.

Wow that’s an impressive goal to read that many books & write reviews.Your suggestion here has me hooked. I’m definitely putting it on my reading list. What is your reading goal for 2020?

Hi Ali, My goal is 60 for 2020. I read 82 in 2018, but last year I discovered Netflix. Red Notice was an edge of the seat read.

I’m looking forward to reading it. Thank goodness for good books and Netflix.

Really love this post, Brigid, and this book sounds captivating.

Thank you Jennifer. I heard of it through a social media group. It makes compulsive reading.

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Book Review: Red Notice, by Bill Browder

• January 19, 2019
• , Book Reviews , How Not To Invest , Wall Street

The first half of Red Notice reads not unlike a 1990s emerging market version of Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker : 1 Browder the investment ingenue learns about the quirky world of Eastern European finance in the early 1990s. He describes hilariously and ruefully the characters he meets and the insights he gets into early opportunities following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The consulting gig failure in rural Poland. The terrible job working for soon-to-indicted Robert Maxwell. Valuing an aging ship fleet above the Arctic Circle for Salomon Brothers, and finding tremendous value in what others thought was a scrap heap.

Browder writes breezily, humorously, humbly, even about the years in which he gained financial experience and stature – just as Lewis did. His novelistic details of quoted conversations, what people wore, and what they ate over meals – these experiences cannot be literally true based on memories from 20 years ago – they have the ring of truth and the flow of narrative. It’s a great read. Super fun.

Then Browder creates his big breakthrough – as maybe the only American to figure out how to profit from the vouchers that privatized Russian national wealth and created the Oligarchs – as a Salomon Brothers Vice President. His greatest success, becoming the largest foreign investor in Russia by 2005 with Hermitage Fund, also begins the dark chapters of his life, and of the book.

The Second Part of the Book

The fun turns to concern, then fear, and then horror. Browder handles the narrative mood changes well. The central problem is that he became a thorn in the side of Russian businessmen by attempting a version of “corporate good governance” campaigns within Russia. While this made him and his funds money in the beginning, eventually his methods bumped up against the corrupt mafia of the Russian state, the Oligarchs, and their Capo, Vladimir Putin. The Russian state fought back.

From here, Browder’s narrative gets very, very dark.

Browder attempted to embarrass corrupt members of the business elite, including eventually Putin, through exposure. Nearly every in-country business associate of Browder’s received threats from the Russian state and quasi-state mafia. His lawyer Sergei Magnitsky 2 was arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. A central, unforgettable, message of Browder’s book is just how dangerous and immoral Putin’s government is.

I have to assume that there is a very real chance that Putin or members of his regime will have me killed someday. Like anyone else, I can’t mention most of the countermeasures I take, but I will mention one: this book. If I’m killed, you will know who did it. When my enemies read this book, they will know that you know.

Red Notice has garnered a tremendous amount of attention since publication in 2015, but given the ongoing current events, it still feels like 95% of Americans aren’t aware of the true nature of the Russian state under Vladimir Putin.

Please see related posts:

All Bankers Anonymous books in one place!

Post read (2009) times.

• And I mean that as the highest form of praise. Lewis has been the reigning G.O.A.T. of finance journalists since the late 80s. ↩
• The “Magnitsky Act,” named for Browder’s lawyer, imposed sanctions on Putin’s inner circle for corrupt acts and human rights violations. The Russian Parliament responded by ending US adoptions of Russian children. The supposed cover story for the now-infamous “Trump Tower” meeting involving Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, and Russians in June 2016 offering dirt on Hillary Clinton was a discussion of “Russian adoptions.” ↩

4 Replies to “Book Review: Red Notice, by Bill Browder”

Thank you for the recommendation, I found it to be excellent and very eye-opening.

you’re welcome!

I have read just about evert David Baldacci Daniel Silva, Robert Patterson and Dan brown novels. All fiction of course. I rarely read non fiction. This is one of the best books I have ever read. It is very eye-opening given the current political climate as far as what’s going on with the Russian hacking. Anyone who supports putin’s Russia (or who does not know what’s going on there) or any socialist nation for that matter, should read this book. It will change your mind.

Mr. Browder’s lies are exposed in “The Killing of William Browder: Deconstructing Bill Browder’s Dangerous Deception” by Alex Krainer

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Rawson Marshall Thurber ’s “Red Notice” should work on paper. It’s got a charismatic cast sent globe-hopping to beautiful places on a treasure hunt straight out of an “Indiana Jones” movie. How could it go wrong? Well, for starters, Thurber and everyone involved forgot a little thing called personality. Rarely have I seen a movie that feels more processed by a machine, a product for a content algorithm instead of anything approaching artistic intent or even an honest desire to entertain. And while there have been quality blockbusters produced by the Hollywood machine for generations (I miss those days), it feels like we’re increasingly reaching the point where they are so calculated and programmed that the human element is completely drained from them, making them as disposable as a fast food cheeseburger. Worst of all, that “content” approach is pulling the life from stars who have shown so much of it in the past. When the poster for “Red Notice” was released, most people lamented its Photoshopped, bland nature. They didn’t realize how honestly it captured the movie.

Thurber, the director of “ Central Intelligence ” and “ Skyscraper ” (two movies I enjoyed enough on their own terms, for the record), reunites with his muse, Dwayne Johnson , who plays the FBI’s top profiler John Hartley. The film opens with an awkwardly inserted info dump about three coveted eggs that were once the property of Cleopatra. Only two have been discovered, making the missing golden egg into a Holy Grail for treasure hunters, including one of the world’s most notorious criminals Nolan Booth ( Ryan Reynolds ). In the film’s relatively effective opening sequence, Hartley catches Booth trying to steal one of the eggs, inadvertently tying the two for the rest of the film into a classic buddy comedy dynamic—the muscle guy and the fast talker. They battle the authorities, a few bad guys, and another criminal mastermind nicknamed The Bishop ( Gal Gadot ) as they bounce around the world, trying to obtain all three eggs and sell them to the highest bidder.

Films like “ Raiders of the Lost Ark ” and “ National Treasure ” were clear inspirations on “Red Notice” but to say this movies lacks the identity of great action/adventure movies would be an understatement. Thurber’s direction seems to have been simply to put Reynolds, Johnson, and Gadot on camera and allow their screen presence and familiar techniques to carry the story, and one can literally see the weight of that on their shoulders. Johnson has never been this wooden, unable to find the hero or everyman in a non-character. He needs to figure out what's next because he seems to be tired of parts like this one and he's too charismatic to convey tired for the next chapter of his career. Reynolds makes out a little better, but you can almost see him growing weary of his attempts at witty schtick as more of his attempts at humor thud than usual. It feels like everyone thought casting would be all it took to make “Red Notice” charming and then forgot to give their actors charming things to actually do. Oh, there’s a lot of running and a lot of banter, but it starts to blend into cinematic paste.

People have lamented the growing sensation that Netflix increasingly makes product that’s designed to be watched with a phone in your hand, and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this more strongly than while watching “Red Notice.” Made for $200 million, none of that fortune was spent on anything that retains a human touch—it’s the iPhone app of action movies. Look up and see a beautiful person in a beautiful place running or shooting something—go back to your phone. While there are some truly goofy and yet somehow predictable twists, there’s almost no real story here, certainly not a memorable one. And the settings, while often gorgeous, somehow lack personality too. Even the title sounds like something grabbed out of an Action Movie Screenwriter program.

So much money, so much charm, so much movie, and yet it adds up to so very little. “Red Notice” is as disposable a movie as you’ll see this year, something that most Netflix subscribers will have trouble remembering exists weeks later. It sets up a potential franchise in its final scenes (because of course it does)—let’s hope everyone involved forgets about that too.

In theaters tonight, November 4 th . On Netflix on November 12 th .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Red Notice (2021)

Rated PG-13 for violence and action, some sexual references, and strong language.

116 minutes

Dwayne Johnson as John Hartley

Ryan Reynolds as Nolan Booth

Gal Gadot as Sarah Black

Ritu Arya as Inspector Urvashi Das

Chris Diamantopoulos as Sotto Voce

• Rawson Marshall Thurber
• Michael L. Sale
• Julian Clarke

Cinematographer

• Markus Förderer
• Steve Jablonsky

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‘Red Notice’ Review

Destined to be the most-watched, least-remembered film of our age..

It happened last weekend while I was watching Army of Thieves , Netflix’s Zack Snyder-produced prequel to Army of the Dead .

A character, while describing the plan for a “comically easy” bank heist, uttered the following line of dialogue: “You know how sometimes in a heist movie, they show a flash-forward of how the heist should work?” To which another character replies “And it never goes according to plan?” And then they show what we think is a flash-forward of the heist going according to plan but then at the end of the flash forward they’re sitting in a van with the loot and we realize this wasn’t a flash-forward at all, it was the actual heist.

It happened again on Monday as I watched Red Notice in a theater ahead of its debut on Netflix this weekend; one of the characters was poking around a big room full of stolen treasure, crates stacked ceiling-high. He’s searching for the object the assembled team of thieves is trying to steal, and as he puttered about he muttered to himself something along the lines of “The box should be labeled ‘MacGuffin.’”

Because as we, the sophisticated audience, know, international art thieves Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) and the Bishop (Gal Gadot), and FBI Agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) are looking for “a seemingly crucial but actually trivial plot element … that sets a thriller’s frenzied action in motion,” the definition of “MacGuffin” in David Kamp and Lawrence Levi’s The Film Snob’s Dictionary . The line is a wink, a sly in-joke, a nod to the fact that writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber knows that we know that the characters know that this is all good fun, a silly and slight romp, an excuse for the swell set to charm us with their whimsy.

Mostly, though, it’s just kind of annoying. Screenwriters, directors, producers, I’m begging you, please: Stop having characters in a movie remind us that we’re watching a movie.

Then again, maybe Netflix needs to remind us that productions like Red Notice are movies rather than algorithmically generated collections of stars and plot points. Red Notice is the platonic ideal of a Netflix production, with many movie-like elements. It has, arguably, the three biggest stars in the world—Reynolds, Johnson, and Gadot are all key components of multiple franchises and all remain the closest thing to a box office draw we have outside of brand names like “Marvel”—and it features a number of expensive sets in a number of glamorous locations.

It does indeed have a MacGuffin, in the form of “Cleopatra’s Eggs,” a fictional trio of priceless treasures given to the Greco-Egyptian queen on her wedding day that disappeared when she died. An Egyptian billionaire has offered a bounty of $30 million for them so he can present them as a gift to his daughter, also named Cleopatra, on her wedding day. Two of the eggs are floating around—one in a museum, one holed up in an arms dealer’s private collection—while the third has been lost to the sands of time, though Booth has a pretty good idea of where it is. Which means the Bishop needs Booth to find it. And Hartley needs to take both of them down to clear his name with Interpol Inspector Urvashi Das (Ritu Arya), who believes the FBI agent has pilfered one of the eggs for himself.

As longtime readers know, I’m a sucker for Reynolds’s particular brand of smarmy charm, I find the Rock to be a winning screen presence even in relatively clunky vehicles like The Jungle Cruise or Rampage , and Gal Gadot’s smile is always a welcome sight on screens big and small. The story is competently told; most of the twists you can see coming a mile away, but you’re also never left wondering what happened or why. It is, visually, inoffensive to the eye.

“Inoffensive competence” is Red Notice ’s métier. There isn’t a single memorable image or line of dialogue, aside from the one about MacGuffins above that annoyed me. It feels like watered down Michael Bay, with knock-off parallax shots and some drone work that made me yearn to re-watch the Ambulance trailer that played in front of Red Notice just so I could feel anything at all.

The good news for Netflix is that this flick will undoubtedly be watched by 95 million people for at least two minutes, or whatever metric they’re using to justify spending $200 million on a picture like Red Notice . The bad news is that no one will remember it exists four weeks from now, just another piece of content swallowed by the big red N’s maw.

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Did you look at the solar eclipse too long? Doctors explain signs of eye damage

By Sara Moniuszko

Edited By Allison Elyse Gualtieri

Updated on: April 8, 2024 / 3:42 PM EDT / CBS News

Did you look up at the solar eclipse without your safety glasses ? Looking at the sun — even when it's partially covered like during the eclipse on April 8 — can cause eye damage.

There is no safe dose of solar ultraviolet rays or infrared radiation, said  Dr. Yehia Hashad , an ophthalmologist, retinal specialist and the chief medical officer at eye health company Bausch + Lomb.

"A very small dose could cause harm to some people," he said. "That's why we say the partial eclipse could also be damaging. And that's why we protect our eyes with the partial as well as with the full sun."

But how do you know if you've hurt your vision? We asked eye doctors what to know.

Is it a sign of eye damage if your eyes hurt after looking at the eclipse?

Your eyes likely won't hurt if you look at the eclipse without protection — but that doesn't make it any less dangerous.

In fact, the painlessness is part of why the event is so concerning to eye care professionals, said Dr. Jason P. Brinton, an ophthalmologist and medical director at Brinton Vision in St. Louis. 

"Everyone knows don't look at the sun. If you go out on a bright day and try to look at the sun — it's very uncomfortable, very bright. So most people intuitively associate that with something they should not be doing," Brinton said. "But with the eclipse, so much of that is blocked and so that natural sense of discomfort and aversion to the brightness is not there."

In some cases, the sun can also damage the cornea, which can be painful, Brinton says.

"The good news is that this fully heals without lasting issues, so this is why we don't think about this aspect as much. The retinal issues, on the other hand, are painless and can have permanent, lasting effects on vision," he said.

What are other signs of eye damage from looking at a solar eclipse?

Hashad says there are a few "alarming signals" to be aware of, including: 

• Blurred vision
• Scotomas, or dark spots: "You just see a black area or a black spot in the field of vision," Hashad said. 
• Color changes:  "You don't see the colors the same way you were seeing it before," he said.
• Distorted lines:  Hashad says this is clinically known as metamorphopsia, which makes lines appear warped, distorted or bent.

"This could be happening unilateral or bilateral," he said. "So it doesn't necessarily happen in both eyes. It could be affecting one over the other or both eyes together."

Issues may not be apparent immediately, either, sometimes appearing one to a few days following the event.

And while some will regain normal visual function, sometimes the damage is permanent. 

"Often there will be some recovery of the vision in the first few months after it, but sometimes there is no recovery and sometimes there's a degree to which it is permanent," Brinton said. 

What should you do if you show symptoms of eye damage?

If you're experiencing any symptoms of eye damage, Hashad suggested people "immediately" seek an ophthalmologist's advice.

"Seeing an eye care professional to solidify the diagnosis and for education I think is reasonable," Brinton said. 

Unfortunately, there isn't a treatment for solar retinopathy, the official name for the condition.

"Right now there is nothing that we do for this. Just wait and give it time and the body does tend to heal up a measure of it," Brinton explained.

That is why prevention is so important, and remains the "mainstay of treatment of solar retinopathy or solar damage to the retina," Hashad explained. 

How long is too long to look at a solar eclipse without glasses?

Any amount of time looking at the solar eclipse without glasses is too long, experts said.

"Damage from the solar eclipse could happen to the retina in seconds," Hashad said. "That's why we don't want people to stare even for a short period of time — even if for a few seconds to the direct sun — whether eclipsed or even partially eclipsed."

Sara Moniuszko is a health and lifestyle reporter at CBSNews.com. Previously, she wrote for USA Today, where she was selected to help launch the newspaper's wellness vertical. She now covers breaking and trending news for CBS News' HealthWatch.

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‘She was like an auntie to me’: Lynne Reid Banks remembered by Michael Morpurgo

The astonishing breadth of her writing was a great inspiration – as was she, in her passionate advocacy for children’s books

Lynne Reid Banks, author of The Indian in the Cupboard, dies aged 94

I t is quite rare to find a writer like Lynne Reid Banks, who tries so many different subjects, and so many different ways of writing. The author of The L-Shaped Room and The Indian in the Cupboard, who died on Thursday aged 94, was a writer I admired and liked a lot – and someone who helped me find a pathway for myself.

I have a huge admiration for the breadth of her writing. Her first novel was for adults, The L-Shaped Room. It was a great hit, and was adapted into a film. Where do you go after that? And the answer was, she didn’t follow the commerce, she didn’t go to Hollywood or spend time just writing film scripts. She went on writing what she cared about.

Then – thank goodness – she turned to writing children’s books, and again, rather quickly became immensely successful with The Indian in the Cupboard. Lynne Reid Banks wrote 48 books, but it isn’t about the numbers, it’s about the fact that she wrote books that are going to be read again and again and again. It’s about the fact she had an individual voice and she tried things out, she experimented. And it’s about the fact that she knew that, as writers for children, we have to pass on the things we’re passionate about.

Lynne took on subjects that others didn’t think you ought to include in children’s books – she knew that if you write about these things in the right way with the right voice and you don’t traumatise, then that is what literature should be for young people. My favourite of her books, and the first I read, is The Indian in the Cupboard. The depth and complexity of it is quite extraordinary. It is one of those books that crosses that ridiculous divide made between adults and children. The notion that somehow you stop being one and then become the other is nonsense, and she knew that.

Her writing displayed her extraordinary spirit – a spirit I have tried to imitate in my own work. She wrote about what she wanted to in the way that she wanted to do it, and didn’t follow trends. She was was a wonderful off-piste writer, and a wonderful off-piste person as well. She broke the glass ceiling in all sorts of different ways: before I knew her, she was one of the first female news reporters on British television.

I knew her for about 40 years off and on, and “warm” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of her. She was wholehearted in her appreciation of others, and extremely passionate about children’s art and children’s literature.

We coincided in so many ways. She and I both felt passionately against the way the national curriculum seems to be all about testing and outcomes. If you wish to encourage children to read or paint or do drama, you have to leave room in the day for that, and room in the lives of children to express the creative side of themselves. Lynne knew that instinctively, and I think that may well have been thanks to the time she spent living and teaching on a kibbutz in Israel. She was working out in the open with children, where they were close to nature, growing their sense of the planet around them and their belonging to that planet.

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Her work there was not dissimilar to the work I do with my charity Farms for City Children, through which we give classes of children the chance to spend time on one of our farms, working with them out on the land, digging with them in the vegetable garden and helping them to lamb sheep. Lynne and I had a very close connection about the importance of the land – she felt instinctively that being in nature was something that was very good for children’s welfare and wellbeing. She was talking about that a long time before other people.

Fourteen years my senior, to some extent she was like an auntie to me: very encouraging, never critical. We wouldn’t see each other for five or six years, and then she’d ring up out of the blue, about something I’d said. She gave me good advice, and I always felt that she was encouraging me a little further down some route. If I was being a bit belligerent about the way children are being taught in school, she was encouraging me to do more. I felt like I was a sort of clockwork friend of hers: when we got together, she would wind me up a bit to keep me going.

There won’t be another person who has had the extraordinary life that she had. I shall miss her a lot.

As told to Lucy Knight

• Michael Morpurgo
• Children and teenagers

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After the solar eclipse: Eyesight blurry? What are the symptoms of eclipse blindness? What to look for

The 2024 solar eclipse brings a rare event to ohio, but safe viewing is essential to avoid "eclipse blindness" and what could become permanent eye damage..

Ohio will witness a unique and spectacular event when the solar eclipse darkens skies around the state. A large swath of the state will be shrouded in total darkness as it falls in the path of totality (even if data suggests that path might now be smaller ).

Hopefully you're prepared with the best glasses or have supplies to construct a viewer at home . If not, you'll want to forget about watching this eclipse. Here's why.

Looking at the sun during an eclipse without protection can permanently damage your eyes

Fast forward to the hours after the solar eclipse :

You witnessed an amazing celestial sight that reminded you of our place in the cosmos. Or you stepped outside long enough to check it out, post a pic to Facebook and call it a day. But now  your eyesight is a bit blurry , and straight things look a little curved. Did you damage your eyes?

Even a short glance at the sun  without proper protection  can cause temporary or permanent damage to your eyes. Sunglasses aren't enough, you need  ISO-certified solar eclipse glasses  which block  about 1,000 times  more sunlight.

So make sure your glasses are approved, undamaged and within arm's reach today. The solar spectacle will last most of the afternoon in Ohio, but the path of totality will last just a few minutes.

When does the solar eclipse start in Ohio?

Have your eclipse glasses ready after lunch, Buckeye State stargazers. According to National Eclipse , Ohio residents can first see the moon overtake the sun at 1:53 p.m. before it fully reappears at 4:30 p.m.

The eclipse totality will last from 3:08 to 3:19 p.m. as it cuts a swath from southwest to northeast Ohio. Cincinnati and Columbus lie just south of the path of totality (northern suburbs of both cities will experience total darkness), but Akron, Cleveland, Kent and portions of North Canton lie in the path of totality.

Here's when some Ohio cities along its path can expect the total eclipse, and how long totality will last:

• Hamilton – Begins at 3:09:09 p.m., will last 1 minute, 42 seconds.
• Dayton – 3:09:29 p.m., will last 2 minutes, 43 seconds.
• Springfield – 3:10:15 p.m., will last 2 minutes, 34 seconds.
• Marion – 3:11:14 p.m., duration 3 minutes, 34 seconds.
• Delaware – 3:11:36 p.m., will last 2 minutes, 35 seconds.
• Fremont – 3:11:46 p.m., duration 2 minutes, 38 seconds.
• Dublin – 3:11:59 p.m., will last 1 minute, 23 seconds.
• Port Clinton – 3:12:12 p.m., duration 3 minutes, 30 seconds.
• Toledo – 3:12:17 p.m., duration 1 minute, 53 seconds.
• Mansfield -- 3:12:23 p.m., will last 3 minutes, 16 seconds.
• Ashland – 3:12:43 p.m., duration 3 minutes, 19 seconds.
• Wooster – 3:13:39 p.m., duration 2 minutes, 25 seconds.
• Akron – 3:14:14 p.m., will last 2 minutes, 46 seconds.
• Cuyahoga Falls – 3:14:15 p.m., will last 2 minutes, 56 seconds.
• Cleveland – 3:13:46 p.m., will last 3 minutes, 49 seconds.
• Kent – 3:14:31 p.m., will last 2 minutes, 47 seconds.

What was the last solar eclipse in Ohio? When is the next one?

Congress voted to welcome the Ohio to the United States in 1803. The Buckeye State was still a toddler the last time it experienced a solar eclipse in 1806. Eclipse glasses were decades away from being invented.

Ohio's next solar eclipse comes a little sooner than 281 years, but the 2024 event is still a once-in-a-lifetime show for many viewers – the next one won't happen until 2099.

Let's be clear: If you're in Cincinnati or Columbus on April 8, you won't see a total solar eclipse

How do I know if I damaged my eyes during the April eclipse? What are the symptoms of eclipse blindness?

So you watched the eclipse with glasses, but maybe they slipped off, were damaged, or were never ISO certified. How do you know if you damaged your eyes?

The retinas of your eyes have no nerve endings, so even if they are damaged, you may not feel any pain. But according to the  American Academy of Ophthalmology , you should go see your ophthalmologist if you experience any of these symptoms a few hours or even days after the eclipse:

• Blurry vision.
• Headache and/or eye pain.
• Vision loss or a black spot at the center of a patient’s sight in one or both eyes.
• Increased sensitivity to light.
• Distorted vision (a straight line may look bent or curvy).
• Changes in the way you see color, known as "dyschromatopsia."

How long can I look at the sun if I'm using eclipse glasses?

According to the American Astronomical Society, while some glasses and viewers include warnings about looking through them at the sun for more than 3 minutes at a time, as long as your glasses are compliant with the ISO 12312-2 safety standard and are undamaged, "you may look at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed sun through them for as long as you wish."

What does looking at the sun do to your eyes?

Ever started a fire by using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight onto a point?

The lens of your eye does essentially the same thing when it focuses the light you see onto the retinas at the back of your eye, the  American Academy of Ophthalmology  explained. The retina is the light-detecting part of your eye that transmits those signals to the brain. Direct, intense light can burn a hole in them or destroy retinal cells almost immediately.

Normally it hurts to look at the sun and humans naturally squint or look away. Even a few seconds can be too much. But during an eclipse, the visible sunlight is reduced and it becomes possible to look directly at it without discomfort for longer periods of time. You may not even know you've damaged your eyes until the next day.

The result is solar retinopathy or retinal burns. It can happen from looking at the sun or at too-bright reflections of sunlight off snow or water. The most common cause of solar retinopathy is viewing a solar eclipse, also called eclipse blindness.

It's rare, but it can be permanent. The  2017 eclipse , which passed from Oregon to South Carolina, is thought to have caused about 100 cases, according to the  American Astronomical Society , out of the estimated 150 million people who witnessed it. But since solar retinopathy doesn't cause complete blindness, many people with minor cases may have never reported it or even known they had it.

How long will damage from looking at an eclipse last?

Researchers have found that some patients "may see symptoms ease over time," according to  David Hutton  for Ophthalmology Times. The cones in the retina are resilient and resist damage, experts say.

In a 1976 study, some patients saw their symptoms clear over time, and researchers found that some cases saw an "excellent recovery" in the first three months.

However, others have suffered permanent damage resulting in impaired vision in the form of a small blind spot in one or both eyes and distortion.

Is damage from looking at a solar eclipse treatable?

No. There is no treatment.

You should have an ophthalmologist scan your eyes to see how much damage has been done and they can monitor them over the next few months to chart any recovery, but the only thing you can do is wait and hope for it to go away.

And avoid looking at the sun.

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