Will I love The Big Short?

As everyone knows at this point, anything Michael Lewis writes will be enormous fun to read, while being about something really important—something he’ll make you care about even if you didn’t when you started the book.

In this case, the subject is people who bet on the direction of mortgages (and thus, house prices), and how those who bet on a huge plunge were right. This book has an amazing cast of characters, all richly drawn: some are smart, some are not so smart; some are excellent schmoozers, some can barely tolerate human interaction; some care a lot about money,… show more.

The Big Short (yes, the book, not the movie): If you want to understand the financial system, and how it’s rigged against individual investors, this is the best book I’ve found.

It exposes the underlying systems that drive the development of the financial products and services we are all sold, providing a level of understanding that can help us all make better financial decisions. Plus, it’s an incredible read.

There is a reason that Michael Lewis’ books (Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, Flash Boys) are made into movies—they read like fascinating screenplays and make you feel like you… show more.

In my career as a corporate spy, I was able to see and learn many things I wasn’t supposed to. As a result, I saw the makings of what would become the world’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the 2008 Crash. At first, I thought I was the only one, until I read The Big Short. Michael Lewis documents the few oddballs and kooks prescient enough to read the financial tea leaves and see the crash coming. More than that, he shows how Wall Street didn’t care, until it was too late. 

Michael Lewis is a literary magician. He can take the most obscure and unpalatable topic, find a story buried somewhere inside it, and turn that story into a book so good that you want to tell your friends about it. The Big Short is Lewis at his best. It tells the story of a motley crew of unconventional stock traders who saw the diabolical lie at the center of the subprime mortgage boom and bet against the market when the market was sizzling. They were Cassandras, destined never to be believed—until the market crashed in 2008, their detractors lost their… show more.

It’s very hard to tell the story of complicated events, and the global financial crisis that broke out in 2008 was certainly very complicated. Michael Lewis, though, is a brilliant storyteller. The Big Short, which was made into a fine film, focuses on the savvy (but often eccentric, even obnoxious) traders who bet against the sophisticated financial instruments that were at the heart of the crisis. Their story, fascinating in itself, cuts through all the complications and reveals the scary dynamics that gave birth to the crisis. 

If you read The Big Short or watch the film, you may… show more.

A former investment banker, the author brings a sceptical view to books like Liar’s Poker, his first big success, but The Big Short is without a doubt the definitive account of the sub-prime debacle that led directly to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and put an abrupt and painful end to what had been called The Great Moderation. It took a decade to recover from the disaster of 2008, just in time for the economic devastation wrought by the pandemic. By dint of old-fashioned journalism, The Big Short exposes the herd-like mentality of much of Wall Street and,… show more.

Nearly every Michael Lewis book offers some important lesson in finance or statistics (e.g. Moneyball). The Big Short tells the story of the 2008 financial crisis through the stories of several investors who saw it coming. The book does a brilliant job describing the complex Wall Street financial products that turned a real estate collapse into a global financial panic. Lewis probes how misaligned incentives for actors ranging from mortgage brokers to ratings agencies caused people to do things that were good for them and catastrophic for the rest of us. Lewis is a great storyteller; his stories also… show more.

Lewis’s account of the traders who got it right in 2008 is a magnificent achievement in that he somehow manages to take highly complex and esoteric material and make it both comprehensible to the lay reader and wildly entertaining. To give credit where due, I found one of my interview subjects for Hedge Fund Market Wizards (Jamie Mai) by reading this book.