A review by aspirin
Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

3.0

I really liked the start of the book, which mostly described Salomon's workplace and characters. However, this fell apart for me when Lewis tried to connect Salomon's inner workings to the wider market occurrences. As someone who didn't live through the 1980s and isn't massively familiar with the bond market, it was a bit hard to keep track of things. I wish the book did more to explain some of the mechanisms behind the trades and securities discussed in the vignettes. There were moments where I could tell I was supposed to feel some degree of tension or other emotion, but the book relied on me either having outside knowledge of the trading mechanism or trying to lead a horse to water with a single line that said something to the effect of "this is a lot of risk." Consequently, I never really felt the emotions the story wanted me to feel. I found myself saying "huh, neat," rather than "WOW." The story never really crescendoed for me.