-
Boomerang
- Travels in the New Third World
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.96
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Flash Boys
- A Wall Street Revolt
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Lewis returns to the financial world to give listeners a ringside seat as the biggest news story in years prepares to hit Wall Street....
-
-
Making the system deliver on its promise.
- By Darwin8u on 04-01-14
By: Michael Lewis
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side? In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking listeners into the mind of Bankman-Fried.
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Panic!
- The Story of Modern Financial Insanity
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Blair Hardman, Jesse Boggs
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterful account of today's money culture, showing how the underpricing of risk leads to catastrophe. With his trademark humor and brilliant anecdotes, Michael Lewis paints the mood and market factors leading up to each event, weaves contemporary accounts to show what people thought was happening at the time, and then, with the luxury of hindsight, analyzes what actually happened and what we should have learned from experience.
-
-
Good - But you need to know what you are getting.
- By Cash on 01-03-09
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Big Short
- Inside the Doomsday Machine
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Jesse Boggs
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real-estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his number-one best-selling Liar’s Poker.
-
-
Informative and Engaging
- By Jay on 03-23-10
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Undoing Project
- A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forty years ago Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred systematically when forced to make judgments about uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made Michael Lewis' work possible.
-
-
Behind the scenes of amazing science
- By Neuron on 10-16-17
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Premonition
- A Pandemic Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
-
-
Why not Michael Lewis?
- By Brian on 05-04-21
By: Michael Lewis
-
Flash Boys
- A Wall Street Revolt
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Lewis returns to the financial world to give listeners a ringside seat as the biggest news story in years prepares to hit Wall Street....
-
-
Making the system deliver on its promise.
- By Darwin8u on 04-01-14
By: Michael Lewis
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side? In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking listeners into the mind of Bankman-Fried.
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Panic!
- The Story of Modern Financial Insanity
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Blair Hardman, Jesse Boggs
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterful account of today's money culture, showing how the underpricing of risk leads to catastrophe. With his trademark humor and brilliant anecdotes, Michael Lewis paints the mood and market factors leading up to each event, weaves contemporary accounts to show what people thought was happening at the time, and then, with the luxury of hindsight, analyzes what actually happened and what we should have learned from experience.
-
-
Good - But you need to know what you are getting.
- By Cash on 01-03-09
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Big Short
- Inside the Doomsday Machine
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Jesse Boggs
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real-estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his number-one best-selling Liar’s Poker.
-
-
Informative and Engaging
- By Jay on 03-23-10
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Undoing Project
- A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forty years ago Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred systematically when forced to make judgments about uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made Michael Lewis' work possible.
-
-
Behind the scenes of amazing science
- By Neuron on 10-16-17
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Premonition
- A Pandemic Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
-
-
Why not Michael Lewis?
- By Brian on 05-04-21
By: Michael Lewis
-
The New New Thing
- A Silicon Valley Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Bruce Reizen
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape - which launched the Information Age - and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.
-
-
A fun book about Jim Clark
- By Horace on 07-07-10
By: Michael Lewis
-
Moneyball
- The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moneyball reveals a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the giant offices of major league teams and the dugouts. But the real jackpot is a cache of numbers collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors.
-
-
Excellent Book, Outstanding Narration, Sloppy Edit
- By Dirk Turgid on 03-05-12
By: Michael Lewis
-
Liar's Poker
- RIsing Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, before Michael Lewis became the best-selling author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and Flash Boys, he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to New York- and London-based bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years - a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.
-
-
Finally!
- By Anonymous User on 02-08-22
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Fifth Risk
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when the President of the United States governs one Tweet at a time? When the elected leader of the free world may not have a firm grasp on the names of government agencies, much less an understanding of their intricate inner-workings? In the days following the 2016 inauguration, government personnel searched for answers that didn’t exist, while White House staff scoured halls for employees who would never be appointed.
-
-
Awkward and Disappointing
- By Amit M on 10-04-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
Has Anyone Seen the President?
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 54 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this audio investigation - unavailable in book form - Lewis narrates his 2018 report from Washington originally published in Bloomberg View. From inside the White House press room - which Lewis describes as having "the cramped, uncared-for feel of a public toilet" - to a balcony overlooking "a sea of white people" in the Trump International Hotel, to Steve Bannon's Capitol Hill townhouse, where he joins the former campaign CEO to watch the State of the Union address, Lewis takes listeners on an unforgettable behind-the-scenes tour.
-
-
Great short form audio
- By Jackson Polyp on 08-18-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
Next
- The Future Just Happened
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in the midst of one of the greatest status revolutions ever, and it's a brave new world indeed. Who better to guide us through it than Michael Lewis, whose subversive, trenchant humor is the perfect match to his subject matter. Here is an audiobook as fresh as tomorrow's headlines, and as entertaining as its best selling predecessors.
-
-
Worth your time
- By Jason on 03-02-03
By: Michael Lewis
-
Making Winners
- The Coaching Explosion
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journalist and bestselling author Michael Lewis’ podcast Against the Rules is dedicated to examining what's happened to fairness. It feels like there's less of it every day, and one of the “haves” of those who are better off includes access to coaching. But does having a coach help or hinder us?
-
-
ML’s Best Of Coaching From His Podcast
- By Photo Curt on 03-01-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Blind Side
- Evolution of a Game
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of 13 children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.
-
-
Another great book by Michael Lewis
- By Leland on 03-20-11
By: Michael Lewis
-
When Genius Failed
- The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Roger Lowenstein
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
-
-
When Genius Failed
- By Sean on 12-17-08
By: Roger Lowenstein
-
Too Big to Fail
- The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves
- By: Andrew Ross Sorkin
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.
-
-
Best Book About Meltdown
- By Chuck on 12-08-09
-
The Ascent of Money
- A Financial History of the World
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.
-
-
A mostly successful and interesting history
- By A reader on 02-24-09
By: Niall Ferguson
-
The Bond King
- How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All
- By: Mary Childs
- Narrated by: Mary Childs
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. Ten thousand dollars and countless casino bans later, he was hooked, so he enrolled in business school. The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino.
-
-
Being a good writer does not make you a good narrator
- By John Mallory on 05-14-22
By: Mary Childs
Publisher's summary
From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Big Short, Liar’s Poker and The Blind Side!
The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.
The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.
The trademark of Michael Lewis’s best sellers is to tell an important and complex story through characters so outsized and outrageously weird that you’d think they have to be invented. (You’d be wrong.) In Boomerang, we meet a brilliant monk who has figured out how to game Greek capitalism to save his failing monastery; a cod fisherman who, with three days’ training, becomes a currency trader for an Icelandic bank; and an Irish real estate developer so outraged by the collapse of his business that he drives across the country to attack the Irish Parliament with his earth-moving equipment.
Lewis’s investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American listener to a comfortable complacency: Oh, those foolish foreigners. But when Lewis turns a merciless eye on California and Washington DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.
Critic reviews
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
The Money Culture
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.
-
-
Not the normal great Michael Lewis
- By Me on 05-12-12
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Oligarchs
- Wealth and Power in the New Russia
- By: David Hoffman
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 22 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for
The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals.
-
-
Supreme Chronicle of Murky Times
- By ivan on 03-01-14
By: David Hoffman
-
Confidence Men
- Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, New York and Washington, learned how to manufacture it - until August 2007, when that confidence began to crumble. Ron Suskind here tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in "a new era of responsibility".
-
-
Insightful, but...
- By Ray on 10-29-11
By: Ron Suskind
-
The Asylum
- The Renegades Who Hijacked the World's Oil Market
- By: Leah McGrath Goodman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were a band of outsiders unable to get jobs with New York's gilded financial establishment. They would go on to corner the world's multitrillion-dollar oil market, reaping unimaginable riches while bringing the economy to its knees. Meet the self-anointed kings of the New York Mercantile Exchange. In some ways, they are everything you would expect them to be: a secretive, members-only club of men and women who live lavish lifestyles; cavort with politicians, strippers, and celebrities; and blissfully jacked up oil prices to nearly $150 a barrel while profiting off the misery of the working class.
-
-
A far better book than its come-on implies
- By Philo on 01-05-14
-
The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
-
-
Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
-
Why Wall Street Matters
- By: William D. Cohan
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William D. Cohan is no knee-jerk advocate for Wall Street and the big banks. He's one of America's most respected financial journalists and the progressive best-selling author of House of Cards. He has long been critical of the bad behavior that plagued much of Wall Street in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and because he spent 17 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, he is an expert on its inner workings as well.
-
-
An Inch Deep and A Mile Wide
- By Doug Sheridan on 04-26-17
By: William D. Cohan
-
The Money Culture
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.
-
-
Not the normal great Michael Lewis
- By Me on 05-12-12
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Oligarchs
- Wealth and Power in the New Russia
- By: David Hoffman
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 22 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for
The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals.
-
-
Supreme Chronicle of Murky Times
- By ivan on 03-01-14
By: David Hoffman
-
Confidence Men
- Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, New York and Washington, learned how to manufacture it - until August 2007, when that confidence began to crumble. Ron Suskind here tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in "a new era of responsibility".
-
-
Insightful, but...
- By Ray on 10-29-11
By: Ron Suskind
-
The Asylum
- The Renegades Who Hijacked the World's Oil Market
- By: Leah McGrath Goodman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were a band of outsiders unable to get jobs with New York's gilded financial establishment. They would go on to corner the world's multitrillion-dollar oil market, reaping unimaginable riches while bringing the economy to its knees. Meet the self-anointed kings of the New York Mercantile Exchange. In some ways, they are everything you would expect them to be: a secretive, members-only club of men and women who live lavish lifestyles; cavort with politicians, strippers, and celebrities; and blissfully jacked up oil prices to nearly $150 a barrel while profiting off the misery of the working class.
-
-
A far better book than its come-on implies
- By Philo on 01-05-14
-
The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
-
-
Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
-
Why Wall Street Matters
- By: William D. Cohan
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William D. Cohan is no knee-jerk advocate for Wall Street and the big banks. He's one of America's most respected financial journalists and the progressive best-selling author of House of Cards. He has long been critical of the bad behavior that plagued much of Wall Street in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and because he spent 17 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, he is an expert on its inner workings as well.
-
-
An Inch Deep and A Mile Wide
- By Doug Sheridan on 04-26-17
By: William D. Cohan
-
The Lost Bank
- The Story of Washington Mutual - The Biggest Bank Failure in American History
- By: Kirsten Grind
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry - and even the entire country - lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events.
-
-
Sad and Angry by Turn
- By Johnnie Walker on 07-24-12
By: Kirsten Grind
-
Bought and Paid For
- The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street
- By: Charles Gasparino
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
According to business reporter Charles Gasparino, President Obama is faking his outrage at Wall Street, and his calls for new policies to rein in banks that are "too big to fail" are just pabulum. In reality, Obama has climbed into bed with Wall Street CEOs, giving them what they want so they will support his liberal, big-government agenda.
-
-
Revealing and Convincing
- By Walter on 10-24-11
-
The Match King
- Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
- By: Frank Partnoy
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of the roaring 20s, Swedish émigré Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after Kreuger's suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged.
-
-
excellent Depression era history-biography
- By Donovan R. on 06-17-10
By: Frank Partnoy
-
Rainbow's End: The Crash of 1929
- Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
- By: Maury Klein
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first major history of the Crash in over a decade, Rainbow's End tells the story of the stock market collapse in a colorful, swift-moving narrative that blends a vivid portrait of the 1920s with an intensely gripping account of Wall Street's greatest catastrophe. The book offers a vibrant picture of a world full of plungers, powerful bankers, corporate titans, millionaire brokers, and buoyantly optimistic stock market bulls.
-
-
Plenty of fine detail, especially of the 1920s
- By Philo on 04-18-13
By: Maury Klein
-
The Billionaire Raj
- A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age
- By: James Crabtree
- Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In megacities like Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of yesterday. James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes listeners on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers. Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste.
-
-
Engaging, authors politics could be reduced
- By Chris on 06-17-23
By: James Crabtree
-
Good for the Money
- My Fight to Pay Back America
- By: Bob Benmosche
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, AIG - the American insurance behemoth - was sinking fast. It was the peg upon which the nation hung its ire and resentment during the financial crisis: the pinnacle of Wall Street arrogance and greed. When Bob Benmosche climbed aboard as CEO, it was widely assumed that he would go down with his ship. In mere months, he turned things around, pulling AIG from the brink of financial collapse and restoring its profitability.
-
-
Worthwhile, informative, and just short of inspiring
- By Preston on 11-17-21
By: Bob Benmosche
-
Tap Dancing to Work
- Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966–2012: A Fortune Magazine Book
- By: Carol J. Loomis
- Narrated by: Susan Boyce, Barry Press
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Carol Loomis first mentioned a little-known Omaha hedge-fund manager in a 1966 Fortune article, she didn’t dream that Warren Buffett would one day be considered the world’s greatest investor - nor that she and Buffett would become close personal friends. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major article that supplies context and her own informed point of view.
-
-
A collection of finance articles - not a biography
- By Gerardo A Dada on 08-23-13
By: Carol J. Loomis
-
Iceland's Secret
- The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Con
- By: Jared Bibler
- Narrated by: Jared Bibler
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in Massachusetts, Jared Bibler relocated to Iceland in 2004 only to find himself in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis a handful of years later. Personally wiped out and seeking to uncover the truth about a collapse that brought the pastoral country to its knees, he became the lead investigator into some of the largest financial crimes in the world. This work helped Iceland to famously become the only country to jail its bank CEOs in the wake of the 2008 crisis.
-
-
BIG Story on a Small Island
- By Charles on 01-25-24
By: Jared Bibler
-
Once in Golconda
- A True Drama of Wall Street 1920-1928
- By: John Brooks
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once in Golconda is a dramatic chronicle of the breathtaking rise, devastating fall, and painstaking rebirth of Wall Street in the years between the wars. Focusing on the lives and fortunes of some of the era's most memorable traders, bankers, boosters, and frauds, John Brooks brings to vivid life all the ruthlessness, greed, and reckless euphoria of the '20s bull market, the desperation of the days leading up to the crash of '29, and the bitterness of the years that followed.
-
-
A must read for investors
- By Brad Gillespie on 06-07-15
By: John Brooks
-
The Alchemists
- Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
- By: Neil Irwin
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the 17th century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over our world, from its troubled beginnings to the age of Greenspan, bringing the listener into the present with a marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are.
-
-
Couldn't Listen to this narrator
- By Donald on 07-23-13
By: Neil Irwin
-
Waffle Street
- The Confession and Rehabilitation of a Financier
- By: James Adams
- Narrated by: Scott Merriman
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jimmy Adams was laid off from a hedge fund in early 2009. Wearied by eight years in the bond market and disillusioned by the financial services profession, he decides to get an "honest job" for a change. Before he knows what hit him, Jimmy finds himself waiting on tables of barflies at his local Waffle House.
-
-
A wonderful story of human nature and economics
- By Douglas Meadows on 01-29-24
By: James Adams
-
The Capitalist Code
- It Can Save Your Life and Make You Very Rich
- By: Ben Stein
- Narrated by: Blake Swihart
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most Americans have not inherited wealth or a successful business that can set them up for life. That means most Americans are destined to live with financial worries and concerns for the rest of their lives, right? Wrong! With his entertaining and informative style, New York Times best-selling author, actor, and financial pundit Ben Stein refutes the current notion that the corporate system is rigged against ordinary citizens and explains how corporate stock ownership is the best system ever devised.
-
-
underwhelming narration
- By Brandon Crow on 10-27-17
By: Ben Stein
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Panic!
- The Story of Modern Financial Insanity
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Blair Hardman, Jesse Boggs
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterful account of today's money culture, showing how the underpricing of risk leads to catastrophe. With his trademark humor and brilliant anecdotes, Michael Lewis paints the mood and market factors leading up to each event, weaves contemporary accounts to show what people thought was happening at the time, and then, with the luxury of hindsight, analyzes what actually happened and what we should have learned from experience.
-
-
Good - But you need to know what you are getting.
- By Cash on 01-03-09
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Fifth Risk
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when the President of the United States governs one Tweet at a time? When the elected leader of the free world may not have a firm grasp on the names of government agencies, much less an understanding of their intricate inner-workings? In the days following the 2016 inauguration, government personnel searched for answers that didn’t exist, while White House staff scoured halls for employees who would never be appointed.
-
-
Awkward and Disappointing
- By Amit M on 10-04-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
The New New Thing
- A Silicon Valley Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Bruce Reizen
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape - which launched the Information Age - and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.
-
-
A fun book about Jim Clark
- By Horace on 07-07-10
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Undoing Project
- A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forty years ago Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred systematically when forced to make judgments about uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made Michael Lewis' work possible.
-
-
Behind the scenes of amazing science
- By Neuron on 10-16-17
By: Michael Lewis
-
Flash Boys
- A Wall Street Revolt
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Lewis returns to the financial world to give listeners a ringside seat as the biggest news story in years prepares to hit Wall Street....
-
-
Making the system deliver on its promise.
- By Darwin8u on 04-01-14
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Premonition
- A Pandemic Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
-
-
Why not Michael Lewis?
- By Brian on 05-04-21
By: Michael Lewis
-
Panic!
- The Story of Modern Financial Insanity
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Blair Hardman, Jesse Boggs
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterful account of today's money culture, showing how the underpricing of risk leads to catastrophe. With his trademark humor and brilliant anecdotes, Michael Lewis paints the mood and market factors leading up to each event, weaves contemporary accounts to show what people thought was happening at the time, and then, with the luxury of hindsight, analyzes what actually happened and what we should have learned from experience.
-
-
Good - But you need to know what you are getting.
- By Cash on 01-03-09
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Fifth Risk
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when the President of the United States governs one Tweet at a time? When the elected leader of the free world may not have a firm grasp on the names of government agencies, much less an understanding of their intricate inner-workings? In the days following the 2016 inauguration, government personnel searched for answers that didn’t exist, while White House staff scoured halls for employees who would never be appointed.
-
-
Awkward and Disappointing
- By Amit M on 10-04-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
The New New Thing
- A Silicon Valley Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Bruce Reizen
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape - which launched the Information Age - and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.
-
-
A fun book about Jim Clark
- By Horace on 07-07-10
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Undoing Project
- A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forty years ago Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred systematically when forced to make judgments about uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made Michael Lewis' work possible.
-
-
Behind the scenes of amazing science
- By Neuron on 10-16-17
By: Michael Lewis
-
Flash Boys
- A Wall Street Revolt
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Lewis returns to the financial world to give listeners a ringside seat as the biggest news story in years prepares to hit Wall Street....
-
-
Making the system deliver on its promise.
- By Darwin8u on 04-01-14
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Premonition
- A Pandemic Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
-
-
Why not Michael Lewis?
- By Brian on 05-04-21
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Money Culture
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.
-
-
Not the normal great Michael Lewis
- By Me on 05-12-12
By: Michael Lewis
-
Next
- The Future Just Happened
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in the midst of one of the greatest status revolutions ever, and it's a brave new world indeed. Who better to guide us through it than Michael Lewis, whose subversive, trenchant humor is the perfect match to his subject matter. Here is an audiobook as fresh as tomorrow's headlines, and as entertaining as its best selling predecessors.
-
-
Worth your time
- By Jason on 03-02-03
By: Michael Lewis
-
Coach
- Lessons on the Game of Life
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There was a turning point in Michael Lewis' life, in a baseball game when he was 14 years old. The irascible and often terrifying Coach Fitz put the ball in his hand with the game on the line and managed to convey such confident trust in Lewis's ability that the boy had no choice but to live up to it. "I didn't have words for it then, but I do now: I am about to show the world, and myself, what I can do."
-
-
A Nostalgia Tour of a Great Man
- By Darwin8u on 08-23-14
By: Michael Lewis
-
Making Winners
- The Coaching Explosion
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journalist and bestselling author Michael Lewis’ podcast Against the Rules is dedicated to examining what's happened to fairness. It feels like there's less of it every day, and one of the “haves” of those who are better off includes access to coaching. But does having a coach help or hinder us?
-
-
ML’s Best Of Coaching From His Podcast
- By Photo Curt on 03-01-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Has Anyone Seen the President?
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 54 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this audio investigation - unavailable in book form - Lewis narrates his 2018 report from Washington originally published in Bloomberg View. From inside the White House press room - which Lewis describes as having "the cramped, uncared-for feel of a public toilet" - to a balcony overlooking "a sea of white people" in the Trump International Hotel, to Steve Bannon's Capitol Hill townhouse, where he joins the former campaign CEO to watch the State of the Union address, Lewis takes listeners on an unforgettable behind-the-scenes tour.
-
-
Great short form audio
- By Jackson Polyp on 08-18-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Coming Storm
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tornadoes, cyclones, tsunamis… Weather can be deadly – especially when it strikes without warning. Millions of Americans could soon find themselves at the mercy of violent weather if the public data behind lifesaving storm alerts gets privatized for personal gain. In his first Audible Original feature, New York Times best-selling author and journalist Michael Lewis delivers hard-hitting research on not-so-random weather data – and how Washington plans to release it.
-
-
Badly Mixed Message
- By GE Guest on 08-07-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
Liar's Poker
- RIsing Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, before Michael Lewis became the best-selling author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and Flash Boys, he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to New York- and London-based bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years - a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.
-
-
Finally!
- By Anonymous User on 02-08-22
By: Michael Lewis
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side? In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking listeners into the mind of Bankman-Fried.
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Home Game
- An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When he became a father, Michael Lewis found himself expected to feel things that he didn't feel, and to do things that he couldn't see the point of doing. At first, this made him feel guilty, until he realized that all around him fathers were pretending to do one thing, to feel one way, when in fact they felt and did all sorts of things, then engaged in what amounted to an extended cover-up.
-
-
Michael Lewis gives his account of fatherhood
- By Adam Shields on 10-26-14
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Big Short
- Inside the Doomsday Machine
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Jesse Boggs
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real-estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his number-one best-selling Liar’s Poker.
-
-
Informative and Engaging
- By Jay on 03-23-10
By: Michael Lewis
-
Playing to Win
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.
-
-
Great Listen
- By Brian Bray on 10-15-20
By: Michael Lewis
-
Moneyball
- The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moneyball reveals a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the giant offices of major league teams and the dugouts. But the real jackpot is a cache of numbers collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors.
-
-
Excellent Book, Outstanding Narration, Sloppy Edit
- By Dirk Turgid on 03-05-12
By: Michael Lewis
What listeners say about Boomerang
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John L. Moncrief
- 10-20-11
He makes it look easy.
This book is must reading in my opinion because its account of the almost automatic abuses that seem happen when it's too easy to get money...as in Iceland and Ireland and Greece. In Iceland, fishermen became bankers and ruined the country is record time. In Ireland, easy drove up real estate prices so high that they bore no relationship to true value as measured by rentals. In Greece, its seems everyone from top to bottom was spending money they didn't have. The unaffordable pensions, the universal tax evasion, the false budgets and false statements of tax collections in Greece are unbelievable. In the US, he explores the finanicial condition of municipalities. In Ireland, the Irish government pays off bonds issued by privates banks to private individuals and viritually bankrupts itself. In California, he visits bandrupt towns where the police and fire fighters salaries and pensions that are imposed by a ridiculous system are impossible to pay. What is amazing is how easy the author makes it look to gather this incredible incredible information. He goes almost as a tourist and conducts some interviews. But I dont't think he could not have done this without a lot of preparation.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- stephen
- 01-25-12
Very interesting and informative
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
This book was definitely a great buy. Very informative. Kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was listening to it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MichaelEng
- 01-09-12
Interesting Overview of a few global economies
Is there anything you would change about this book?
It was an enjoyable and very interesting listen. This book was made up of some interesting facts and observations regarding behaviors and cultural differences between countries.I think the book was missing a few conclusions or even bring some thoughts to an end. I felt the book opened up a whole lot of questions without really giving some kind of an answer.
Would you recommend Boomerang to your friends? Why or why not?
I would have recommended to friends until the author went into great detail about German and their alleged feces fascination. Trying to make some logic about why Germans got into sub-prime...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karen
- 02-26-16
One of Lewis's Best
Be warned that this is a collection of articles, but the insights in this book (about finance, human nature, national identity) are priceless.
As a bonus, Boomerang is HILARIOUS!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David
- 12-07-16
Financial trainwrecks worldwide
Economics books can be depressing, especially the more you learn about how the world's markets move. I read Michael Lewis's The Big Short a few years ago. In that book, he covered the subprime mortgage market that lead to the 2007 housing bubble collapse, and the most shocking takeaway there was not that people were greedy and short-sighted, but that all the "experts," the brokers, the realtors, the bankers, the Federal Reserve officials, the "Big Money Men" - didn't actually have a clue! You or I could probably have taken over one of those big, complicated "investment instruments" and run it with about the same chance of success or catastrophic failure.
Boomerang looks at international markets, but here's a spoiler: it's the same story! We like to think that somewhere up there there are actual grown-ups in charge. People who know what they're doing. Sure, they may make mistakes now and then, but they aren't really going to run the economy off a cliff because they're too stupid or greedy to know better.
As the Irish found out after their own housing market bubble burst: not so much.
But the fairly pedestrian housing bubble of Ireland is less fascinating than the banking speculation that did in Iceland. It all started when they decided they didn't want to be fishermen anymore. They had a lot of cheap geothermal energy, so looked around for a way to make money off of it, and decided on aluminum manufacturing.
As funny as that is, the second problem was a much bigger one - Icelanders didn't actually have any aptitude or desire to be aluminum smelters. So they wound up becoming investment bankers instead.
Onwards to Greece, which was and is a real financial basket case. Here, Lewis surprisingly does not blame the bankers, but makes a compelling argument that the bankers were actually the grown-ups who were trying to manage the economy, while it was the Greek population, with no real tradition of civic duty or sense of communal obligation, that looted the entire country's economy.
Then Lewis comEs back to the U.S., and looks at the dire financial woes of San Jose and Vallejo, two California cities with income levels that would be the envy of many countries, and both of whom are financial basket cases. Their main problems are public pensions for firefighters and police.
Lewis examines all these places, and goes on a bike ride with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who comes off rather sympathetically here. According to Lewis, Schwarzenegger was basically an honest guy who tried to get things done without catering to special interests. Sure, he had his political biases, but he genuinely wanted to reform the state's finances. The response from California voters, when they voted down every one of his measures, was an unambiguous "F you." And so Schwarzenegger finished his term in office essentially gelded. Now he's happy, unremorseful, and still rich... and California's economy is still screwed. Though not as screwed as Ireland, Iceland, and Greece.
This book won't really give you a deeper understanding of economics, and it doesn't really offer any solutions. (The solution is for people to stop being so short-sighted and stop buying things they can't pay for on a national scale. Hahahah right.) But if you want a closer look at economic trainwrecks, Lewis explains them in a very understandable way that will leave you with very little optimism about anything improving.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David
- 01-15-12
Shockingly insightful
Any additional comments?
Puts a new perspective on the financial crisis -- and the cultural psychology that made it inevitable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Connie
- 10-18-11
Shame on us.
The story was good and I always enjoy Michael Lewis' books but this one had a different flavor to it. The book develops background on Iceland, Ireland, Greece and Germany's financial problems through unusual people and situations. Nearly every person was so financially naive as to be embarrassing. Wall Street was (again) portrayed as blood sucking vampires with no redeeming virtues as we pushed off our worthless assets onto people who trusted the word and guarantees of the USA and Wall Street.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bryan
- 10-21-11
A Trip Around the Financial Ruins
The fallout from the Financial Crash of 2008 is seen from what happened in Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and the United States. This is a collation of a series of articles that Michael Lewis has been publishing in US Magazines where he became a tourist through the rubble of the world.
Although I had read one of these stories before, this is a very enlightening and entertaining series of stories. I found myself laughing out loud several times. And considering the seriousness of the story that is being told, that says a lot about Mr. Lewis's ability to write cogently and clearly.
How did Iceland come to have debts 7 or 8 times its total GDP? How did a 10th Century monastery in Greece come to have a billion Euro real estate portfolio? Why did the Irish go from welcoming some of their ex-patriots back home to exporting people again? Why are the Germans obsessed with feces? What is the brokest city in the brokest state in the United States?
All these questions and more are answered in this very entertaining book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alex
- 06-08-12
Another entertaining/informative Michael Lewis
A fascinating and engrossing look at the worldwide causes and effects of the finaicial crisis. Mr. Lewis gives us insight into the cultures and behaviors of the different peoples that contributed to the collapse of the financial system. He makes it clear that pointing the finger at a few individuals or countries is misguided and that the problem is rooted more in our cultural programming than we generally consider. Extremely enlightening.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Shadowatcher
- 06-10-17
We must consider the future
We have to consider those of us who will follow. Michael showed us how we are so very well.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!