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The co-op bookstore for avid readers
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Reader Score
89%
89% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 7 reviews on
Winner:L.A. Times Book Prize -Current Interest (2010)
Winner:Robert F. Kennedy Book Award -Grand Prize (2011)
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.
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.
Book Details
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
- Publish Date: Mar 15th, 2010
- Pages: 288
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.17in - 6.34in - 1.05in - 1.10lb
- EAN: 9780393072235
- Categories: • Economic Conditions• United States - 21st Century• Economic History
About the Author
Lewis, Michael: - Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar's Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.
Critics’ reviews
Praise for this book
I recommend everyone within the sound of my voice to read [this] book.--Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
I read it, marked it up for my staff, underlined it, made copies and asked them to read it.--Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.)
[A]n incredible piece of commentary on Wall Street.--Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)
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"
I've joined a lot of other people in just finishing Michael Lewis's book, The Big Short, and it's really an eye-opener of what was going on at the time that this real estate bubble was created.--Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
If you're wondering if there's importance or an urgency to this issue, read the book The Big Short by Michael Lewis, and then, when you're finished reading, come back to the floor and say that you support this amendment [on financial reform].--Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota)