Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller's ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling. In…Boomerang, he actually makes topics like European sovereign debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank not only comprehensible but also fascinating—even, or especially, to readers, who rarely open the business pages or watch CNBC…Mr. Lewis's ability to find people who can see what is obvious to others only in retrospect or who somehow embody something larger going on in the financial world is uncanny. And in this book he weaves their stories into a sharp-edged narrative that leaves readers with a visceral understanding of the fiscal recklessness that lies behind today's headlines…
Part travelogue, part finance journalism, this latest from Lewis tours the countries hardest hit by the financial crisis of 2008—e.g., Iceland, Greece, and Ireland—taking on complex economic issues filled with arcane minutiae and making them utterly compelling. Over the course of his travels, Lewis has numerous culture clashes: while touring Iceland he boards in a room with a natural heat source "so powerful... that some great grinding, wheezing engine must be deployed to prevent it from cooking me." Dylan Baker offers up folksy, everyman narration that is clear and entertaining. He both elucidates complicated financial passages for listeners and captures the spirit of Lewis's adventures. Additionally, Baker is adept at conveying Lewis's dry—and slightly morbid—sense of humor. A W.W. Norton hardcover. (Oct.)
Publishers Weekly - Audio
Essentially an offbeat travelogue, Lewis's latest examines the recent global financial crisis by visiting the locales that have faltered beyond reasonable expectation. Though journalistic, there is a distinctly anthropological approach to vivid depictions of how particular cultural values contributed to such a bizarre, devastating series of events. In his dynamic narrative, Lewis simplifies complex financial systems without condescension, applies a degree of rationality to absurd decisions, and presents key individuals' profiles without denigration. Dark, deadpan humor is injected throughout: Iceland as a nation of fishermen-cum-hedge fund managers with "no idea what they were doing”; Greece's "fantastic mess” of scandalous monasteries, tax-evasion and top-down corruption; Ireland's busted banks and stratospheric losses debilitating a now "distinctly third world” country. Germany is singled-out for its "preternatural love of rules” and naiveté regarding the so-called "riskless asset” while California tops the list of "America's scariest financial places” following their ratings downgrade and piling debts. Easily devoured in one sitting, Lewis (Moneyball) manages to gracefully explain what happened with a unique regard for both the strengths and weaknesses of humankind. (Oct.)
[Lewis’s] explanations of thorny financial processes are surprisingly compelling, his characters entertaining.
Jessica Loudis - BookForum
Lewis’s rare gift as a guide through the world of credit default swaps and sovereign debt doesn’t come simply from his deep understanding of how the global financial system works . . . also his skill as a storyteller, his ability to tell the larger tale through fascinating human stories of greed, excess, and self-delusion.
Chuck Leddy - Boston Globe
Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller’s ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling. . . . Combining his easy familiarity with finance and the talents of a travel writer, Mr. Lewis sets off in these pages to give the reader a guided tour through some of the disparate places hard hit by the fiscal tsunami of 2008, like Greece, Iceland and Ireland, tracing how very different people for very different reasons gorged on the cheap credit available in the prelude to that disaster. The book — based on articles Mr. Lewis wrote for Vanity Fair magazine — is a companion piece of sorts to The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, his bestselling 2010 book about the fiscal crisis. . . . Mr. Lewis’s ability to find people who can see what is obvious to others only in retrospect or who somehow embody something larger going on in the financial world is uncanny. And in this book he weaves their stories into a sharp-edged narrative that leaves readers with a visceral understanding of the fiscal recklessness that lies behind today’s headlines about Europe’s growing debt problems and the risk of contagion they now pose to the world.”
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller’s ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling. In his new book, Boomerang, he actually makes topics like European sovereign debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank not only comprehensible but also fascinating… The book could not be more timely given the worries about Europe’s deepening debt crisis and the recent warning issued by Christine Lagarde, managing director of the I.M.F., that 'the current economic situation is entering a dangerous phase.'
[Lewis’s] explanations of thorny financial processes are surprisingly compelling, his characters entertaining.
BookForum - Jessica Loudis
Lewis’s rare gift as a guide through the world of credit default swaps and sovereign debt doesn’t come simply from his deep understanding of how the global financial system works . . . but also from his skill as a storyteller, his ability to tell the larger tale through fascinating human stories of greed, excess, and self-delusion.
Boston Globe - Chuck Leddy
Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller’s ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling. . . . Combining his easy familiarity with finance and the talents of a travel writer, Mr. Lewis sets off in these pages to give the reader a guided tour through some of the disparate places hard hit by the fiscal tsunami of 2008, like Greece, Iceland and Ireland, tracing how very different people for very different reasons gorged on the cheap credit available in the prelude to that disaster. The book — based on articles Mr. Lewis wrote for Vanity Fair magazine — is a companion piece of sorts to The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, his bestselling 2010 book about the fiscal crisis. . . . Mr. Lewis’s ability to find people who can see what is obvious to others only in retrospect or who somehow embody something larger going on in the financial world is uncanny. And in this book he weaves their stories into a sharp-edged narrative that leaves readers with a visceral understanding of the fiscal recklessness that lies behind today’s headlines about Europe’s growing debt problems and the risk of contagion they now pose to the world.
New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
[Lewis’s] explanations of thorny financial processes are surprisingly compelling, his characters entertaining.— Jessica Loudis
Lewis’s rare gift as a guide through the world of credit default swaps and sovereign debt doesn’t come simply from his deep understanding of how the global financial system works . . . but also from his skill as a storyteller, his ability to tell the larger tale through fascinating human stories of greed, excess, and self-delusion.— Chuck Leddy
The cheap credit available from 2002 to 2008 radically transformed societies worldwide, with Icelanders tossing aside their fishing gear to become bankers, for instance. Then the crunch came, and many of these societies are stumbling about as part of the "new Third World." As a greedy debtor nation, we're not so far behind. Lewis's books are always excellent and always best sellers, so this should be at the top of your list.
After the housing bubble burst and the giant banking bailouts began, a number of world economies hung—and still hang—in the balance. Dylan Baker uses a friendly, folksy delivery to examine the fascinating, frightening, and mind-boggling ways that the cultures of Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and, yes, California handled the pursuit of wealth. Icelandic fishermen stopped fishing and became currency traders. The Irish saw themselves as land barons. Californians paid too much for everything. And they all ended up being left on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars—and still are. Baker’s voice reflects Michael Lewis’s bemused realization that many of these cultures and individuals had no idea of the manipulative power of the global financial industry. If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry. B.P. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2011 - AudioFile
A world tour of nations that have collapsed financially or that played a role in the collapse of others. In his previous book, The Big Short (2010), Lewis dug deep into the housing-market failure that precipitated the economic collapse of 2007-08. Here the author tours Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and California to compose a broader picture of what went wrong. Like Lewis' other bestsellers, this book is alternately wry, snarky, laugh-out-loud humorous, serious and, most importantly, filled with insights. The author is a master at explaining financially complex realms by casting them as narratives of individuals. In each place, he finds people famous, infamous and nearly anonymous who can fairly be rendered as villains or heroes. Each chapter started as an article for Vanity Fair , yet the seemingly disparate features coalesce nicely in the book. Lewis is willing to court danger by generalizing about the characteristics within each nation that led to unexpected consequences. As usual, the author delivers a nice balance of trenchant analysis and lucid writing. In regards to Greece, the most distressed nation of all, "it turned out, what the Greeks wanted to do, once the lights went out and they were alone in the dark with a pile of borrowed money, was turn their government into a piñata stuffed with fantastic sums and give as many citizens as possible a whack at it." An enlightening, scary journey.
