Michael Lewis has become one of my favorite authors (along with Malcolm Gladwell). Moneyball, the first of Lewis' books that I read, captivated me. I set out to read other works by him as soon as I finished. I have to admit, though I thoroughly enjoyed The Blind Side, I did not think there was a movie script there. I guess that's why I'm a car dealer and not a screenplay writer. Like both Moneyball and The Blind Side, Lewis tells his story by following a host of characters that most of us have never heard of--people like Steve Eisman (the closest thing to a main character in the book), Vincent Daniel, Michael Burry, Greg Lippmann, Gene Park, Howie Hubler and others.
In The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine Lewis takes the CDOs, credit default swaps, hedge funds, "swap banks" and other mysterious products and people, and explains them. Don't feel intimidated if you don't know what these are, because, as Lewis explains in the book, many of the people who were making a market in some of these products didn't know what they were either!
Lewis is a Wall Street alumnus (Salomon Brothers) from the mid-eighties. His book Liar's Poker deals with that. It seems in that book that he had seen the height of financial folly. However, even he was surprised by the much larger losses suffered in the recent crisis compared to the 1980s, which seem almost like child's play now.
I enjoyed this book. I listened to the audio book (as I do with most books I consume). I found it both educational and fascinating. Disclaimer: I was a finance major back in the dark ages and have always been interested in financial issues.
Given the complexity of the subject matter, The Big Short was easy to follow, funny and , above all, fascinating. You will understand the crisis better than anyone you know, and have a good time learning about it.
