The Big Short: Film Tie-in - Softcover

MICHAEL LEWIS

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141982942 ISBN 13: 9780141982946

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, 2015

Synopsis

The #1 New York Times bestseller: a brilliant account―character-rich and darkly humorous―of how the U.S. economy was driven over the cliff.

When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, 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 smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking.

The crucial question is this: Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 best-selling Liar’s Poker. Who got it right? he asks. Who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become, and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception? And what qualities of character made those few persist when their peers and colleagues dismissed them as Chicken Littles? Out of this handful of unlikely―really unlikely―heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our times.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Lewis, is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, and Flash Boys. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and three children.

From the Back Cover

Why Michael Lewis, according to Malcolm Gladwell, “is the finest storyteller of our generation”:


Liar’s Poker

“So memorable and alive. . . . It’s one of those rare works that encapsulate and define an era. . . . Remember the 1980s? When you want to recall this roaring decade, pick up a copy of Liar’s Poker.” ―Fortune

“Devastatingly funny.” ―New York


Moneyball

“The best business book Lewis has written. It may be the best business book anyone has written.” ―Mark Gerson, The Weekly Standard

“A brilliantly told tale. . . . Michael Lewis’s beautiful obsession with the idea of value has once again yielded gold.” ―Garry Trudeau

Reviews

Michael Lewis has written from the perspective of a financial insider for more than 20 years. His first book, Liar's Poker, was a warts-and-all account of Wall Street culture in the 1980s, when Lewis worked at the investment bank Salomon Brothers. Everything Lewis has touched since has turned to gold, and The Big Short seems to be another of those books, combining an incendiary, timely topic with the author's solid, insightful, and witty investigative reporting. Only the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette criticized what it felt was a rush job of writing and a failure to integrate the individual stories. Few readers will care for the message here (despite laugh-out-loud moments of absurdity), but Lewis is a capable guide into the world of CDOs, subprime mortgages, head-in-the-sand investments, inflated egos--and the big short. However, as Entertainment Weekly points at, if you're only going to read one book on the topic, perhaps this should not be the one.

Although Lewis is perhaps best known for his sports-related nonfiction (including The Blind Side), his first book was the autobiographical Liar's Poker, in which he chronicled his disillusionment as a young gun on Wall Street in the greed is good 1980s. He returns to his financial roots to excavate the crisis of 2007–2008, employing his trademark technique of casting 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. Although Lewis reads the book's introduction, narration duties are assumed by Jesse Boggs, a veteran narrator of business titles (including Lewis's own 2008 book Panic!). Boggs's rich baritone is well suited to the task and trips lightly through a maze of financial jargon (CDOs, derivatives, mid-prime lending) and a dizzying cast of characters. Lewis returns on the final disc for a 10-minute interview about the crisis's aftermath, including a savvy assessment of the wisdom of the financial bailout and where-are-they-now updates on the book's various heroes and villains. A Norton hardcover. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Much of what caused the recent financial crisis is buried in complicated financial transactions and shady accounting practices. This book does an outstanding job of demystifying the schemes that led to the meltdown. As such, it's an accessible history of the period from 2005 to 2008, when the housing market imploded. Narrator Jesse Boggs has a pleasant, informative voice that conveys the book's ideas but misses the author's tone of outrage. Boggs's pitch does rise as the story becomes more outrageous, but his energy level still remains too low for the compelling nature of the events he recounts. His pacing and diction are excellent, and his decision to underplay the characters allows the debacle itself to take center stage. Nonetheless, one can't help wishing for a more forceful delivery. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141982942
• ISBN 13: 9780141982946
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1