The Big Short
The Big Short accounts for the real story of the crash. It began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The Big Short Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-heroes, this book fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of Michael Lewis’ earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.
“No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis....[he] 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....Writing in faintly Tom Wolfe-ian prose, Mr. Lewis does a colorful job of introducing the lay reader to the Darwinian world of the bond market.”
— Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Superb: Michael Lewis doing what he does best, illuminating the idiocy, madness and greed of modern finance. . . . Lewis achieves what I previously imagined impossible: He makes subprime sexy all over again.”
— Andrew Leonard, Salon.com
“One of the best business books of the past two decades.”
— Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book Review
“I read Lewis for the same reasons I watch Tiger Woods. I’ll never play like that. But it’s good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like.”
— Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book Review