The Money Culture

A very entertaining book, and it gives you a really great look behind the curtains of Wall St.

This is a collection of essays previously published in newspapers and magazines around the nation where some 10 years ago we could witness Lewis' early literary attempts. The book was consistently funny, insightful, and a good primer on several financial issues that dominated the 1980's. Most of these articles, for those interested in the authors' chronological history, came after he wrote his groundbreaking financial humor book entitled Liars Poker, which is regarded as a "must read" for anyone entering into the investment banking industry, particularly in bond trading where we he worked.Mr. Lewis' writing style is great, which is why I read his book entitled Next, another good read if you are interested. Most of the topics in this book cover financial/business culture issues that date back during the late eighties, so there's also a bit of historical perspective to it.The topics are a wide array and include stories about the domestic S & L scandal, some events that occurred in the French Bourse (their word for a stock market), the proliferation of the American Express Card during the 1980s, some offshore banking insights, Louis Rukeyser, Donald Trump, LBO stories and some comments on the Japanese capitalists. Like I said, he talks about a wide array of topics but remember that the book is a compilation of many articles. I give it a 4 star rating. It was highly entertaining but nothing that caused my life to change or caused me to have a "light bulb" go off in my head.

Highly recommended. Don't let the comment about it being dated mislead you -- while the essays are rooted in their time (the early 90's) their insights are likely to remain ever relevent. I especially enjoyed the essay about the changes in the Paris stock exchange.

I loved this book. I found it to be very well written and extremely funny. I think that Michael Lewis doesn't particularly like the Japanese, though.

This is an easygoing book to read while on holiday. You can pick up and put this book down at your own pace. Each chapter is unrelated.