Big Short (Lewis) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis, the author of Liar's Poker, that now classic portrait of 1980s Wall Street. His entertaining new book does not attempt a macro view of the financial crisis, but instead proposes to open a small window on the calamities by recounting the stories of some savvy renegades who cashed in on their conviction that the system was rotten… Mr. Lewis does a nimble job of using his subjects' stories to explicate the greed, idiocies and hypocrisies of a system notably lacking in grown-up supervision, a system filled with firms that "disdained the need for government regulation in good times" but "insisted on being rescued by government in bad times.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times


Since his first book, the autobiographical Liar’s Poker, Lewis has tackled big, engaging stories…by finding and developing characters whose personal narratives reveal a larger truth. He's done it again. The story of the crash is, overwhelmingly, a tale of failure. But Lewis managed to find quirky investors who minted fortunes by making unpopular, calculated bets on a financial meltdown. Ditching the aloof irony of his earliest works, he constructs a story that is funny, incisive, profanity-laced and illuminating—full of difficult-to-like underdogs whose vindication and enrichment we end up cheering.
Daniel Gross - New York Times Book Review


If you read only one book about the causes of the recent financial crisis, let it be Michael Lewis's, The Big Short…What's so delightful about Lewis's writing is how deftly he explains and demystifies how things really work on Wall Street, even while creating a compelling narrative and introducing us to a cast of fascinating, all-too-human characters…The Big Short manages to give us the truest picture yet of what went wrong on Wall Street—and why. At times, it reads like a morality play, at other times like a modern-day farce. But as with any good play, its value lies in the way it reveals character and motive and explores the cultural context in which the plot unfolds.
Steven Pearlstein - Washington Post


[A] microcosmic lens on the personal histories of several Wall Street outsiders who were betting against the grain—to shed light on the macrocosmic tale of greed and fear.
Publishers Weekly

Lewis is a storyteller, and he weaves the personal stories of these renegades against the inner workings of Wall Street's mortgage-backed securities money machine.... Verdict: Readers from generalists through specialists will find this fast-paced, engaging account both illuminating and disturbing. Highly recommended. —Lawrence Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA
Library Journal


[Combines] an incendiary, timely topic with the author's solid, insightful, and witty investigative reporting.... Lewis is a capable guide into the world of CDOs, subprime mortgages, head-in-the-sand investments, inflated egos—and the big short.
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