Product Description

It was wonderful to be young and working on Wall Street in the 1980s: never had so many twenty-four-year-olds made so much money in so little time.

In this shrewd and wickedly funny audiobook, Michael Lewis describes an astonishing era and his own rake’s progress through a powerful investment bank. From an unlikely beginning (art history at Princeton?) he rose in two short years from Salomon Brothers trainee to Geek (the lowest form of life on the trading floor) to Big Swinging Dick–a bond salesman who could turn over millions of dollars’ worth of doubtful bonds with just one call.

A born storyteller, Michael Lewis shows us how things really worked on Wall Street. The bond traders, wearing greed and ambition as badges of honor, might well have swaggered straight from the pages of Bonfire of the Vanities. But for all their outrageous behavior, they were in fact presiding over enormous changes in the world economy. Lewis’s job was to transfer money, in the form of bonds, from those outside American who saved to those inside America who consumed. In doing so, he generated tens of millions of dollars for Salomon Brothers, and earned for himself a ringside seat on the greatest financial spectacle of the decade: the leveraging of America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #422821 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-18
• Released on: 2007-09-18
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

From Library Journal
As described by Lewis, liar's poker is a game played in idle moments by workers on Wall Street, the objective of which is to reward trickery and deceit. With this as a metaphor, Lewis describes his four years with the Wall Street firm Salomon Brothers, from his bizarre hiring through the training program to his years as a successful bond trader. Lewis illustrates how economic decisions made at the national level changed securities markets and made bonds the most lucrative game on the Street. His description of the firm's personalities and of the events from 1984 through the crash of October 1987 are vivid and memorable. Readers of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities ( LJ 11/15/87) are likely to enjoy this personal memoir. BOMC and Fortune Book Club selection.
- Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad . Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ingram
In this shrewd and wickedly funny book, Michael Lewis describes an astonishing era and his own rake's progress through the jungle of a powerful investment bank. In two short years he rose from trainee to a bond salesman who could turn over millions of dollars' worth of doubtful bonds with just one call.

About the Author
Michael Lewis is the bestselling author of Coach, Moneyball, and The New New Thing, among other books. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their two daughters

Customer Reviews

Good read for a finance novice too!
I picked up this book as it is highly popular among investment bankers. I am not an investment banker and do not intend to be one but I was keen to find out what makes Wall Street special. The book not only satisfied my curiosity but also was pleasantly amusing.

The author traces the glorious and gloomy times of Salomon Brothers, a big financial enterprise in which he worked long enough to be able to tell this tale and become a rich man. He explains some financial innovations of Salomon brother's in lay man's terms, which makes this book very readable for all.

The author's self-deprecating humor and his vivid analysis of the people he came across in his organization make the account entertaining.

Whether or not the author's opinions on technical matters in this book are meritorious-I am not qualified to say. If you are a finance novice and curious to find out about life in that universe, you will find this book worthwhile.

A Great Inside View Of Wallstreet
I read this book back when it was a best seller. Lewis gives us a great insight into the world of Salomon Brothers. In the 1980s Salomon Brothers and their bond traders were at the top Wall Street. The head of Salomon, John Gutfreund was considered the King of Wall Street. John Meriwether the chief bond trader, was the master of the universe. Early in the book Gutfreund challenges Meriwether to a million dollar game of liar`s poker.You become instantly gripped, by what is happening at Salomon Brothers. The message that Lewis is trying to relay, is that Wall Street was growing into a monster. Years later, Meriwether was involved with a multi billion dollar failure at Long Term Capital Management.

Outstanding
An excellent book by an excellent author. I highly recommend it. Liar's Poker and Moneyball are Lewis at his best.