Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

The other reason to read this is that Lewis is a brilliant writer, with a real talent for describing people and their situations. Lots of other people have written boring books with the same raw material. For a non-specialist like my mother, the technicalities were hard work, but you don't need a lot of special knowledge to like this book. My mother certainly did.

Probably the best way to look at this book is like a travel book - you're not visiting a country, you're visiting a world. Great travel books are not word-perfect descriptions of a place, they are representations of what the author felt like when he was there, and they give the reader a feeling of what it was like to be there. If you read this book, you will understand what it feels like to work inside a big bank, and you'll enjoy the ride, even if you have no interest in actually working there.


Trading on Wall Street in the Eighties   December 7, 1999
Ryan Snodgrass (Seattle, WA USA)
30 out of 34 found this review helpful

Fascinating and entertaining look into the life of a trader at Saloman Brothers during the eighties. Most books about Wall Street seem dry and uninteresting to the outsider but Lewis has presented a humorous and enlightening story that you just can't put down. If you are at all curious as to what goes on inside Wall Street you must read this book.


Captures the essence of the culture   July 4, 2002
20 out of 23 found this review helpful

In Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis writes about his journey in becoming a bond salesman and his two years of work experiences at Salomon Brothers. While the book does offer some information about the finacial innovations driving the bond business in the 1980s, I think the principle thrust of the book is an examination of the culture and the personalities of Wall Street trading desks. The first chapter story, which is the basis for the title of the book, involving John Gutfreund and John Meriwether encapsulates the nature of this world.

This book is an important read for anyone who thinks they might want to become a trader/salesperson on Wall Street. If not, it is still a very interesting peek into a world that most people do not understand.

My last comment is a minor criticism of Michael Lewis. Lewis writes in the first person and is obviously a very self-involved individual with an extremely high opinion of himself. This is more evident in his later writings and columns for various periodicals (e.g. his NY Times article on Long-Term Capital was sickening). Despite this criticism the book is still very enjoyable.


Immensely Entertaining Account of Bond-Mania in the Roaring 1980s.   January 10, 2006
mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

"Liar's Poker" is a memoir of Michael Lewis' 3 years as a bond salesman for the investment firm Salomon Brothers, Wall Street's premier bond brokerage in the early 1980s. It follows Lewis' career from his serendipitous introduction to the firm, through his initiation as a trainee in 1985, to 1988, while recounting the history of Salomon Brothers' rise to bond dominance and subsequent fall brought on by excesses, poor management, and failure to compete in the junk bond market. Lewis' literate, swiftly paced prose paints a vivid picture of Salomon Brothers' boorish, competitive culture amid the frenzied atmosphere of a rapidly changing late 1980s economy. It shifts effortlessly between trading floor anecdotes and explanations of the mortgage trading department without seeming to digress. Well-written, insightful, and often hysterically funny, "Liar's Poker" is one of those rare Wall Street books that is immensely entertaining -and mostly true. I don't know if someone with no interest in finance would enjoy it, but no knowledge of the bond market in required to understand it. I have heard it said that "Liar's Poker" is accurate in its portrayal of Salomon Brothers but less so in the author's position at the firm. But it hardly matters if the account is somewhat fictionalized. It's just a great read.


Wall Street Demystified   June 3, 2006
Pablo R. Vitaver (Ft Lauderdale, FL USA)
19 out of 27 found this review helpful

For those of us that have an innate disbelief for brokers, traders, advisors and the likes working from Wall Street, this is a must read. For those of you who take lessons and advise from financial advisors, money experts, radio and TV charlatans, this book should be mandatory.

The basic premise (mine, not the Author) is, why someone who knows what will go up or down, will share that with me? By a simple rule of supply and demand (and its effect in price), when more people find out about a `good deal', the `less good' the deal becomes. I.e. the fewer people that `know' that a commodity will go up in value, the better, as the demand for that commodity remains low. The more people that find out about this commodity (stock, bond, investment, metal, etc.) the demand will rise and so will the price. Why will someone that `knows' what will improve in price, share that with you? If your advisor really knew, he/she would not be wasting their time telling you about it, they would gobble up on that commodity, spend all they have to buy more, and then borrow some more. Then the opposite is also true: once he/she accumulated as much as possible of such commodity, then they would have a credible and legitimate reason to `spread the knowledge', so people would start buying and he/she can sell... and the price will go down!

The only reservation which would oppose this logic is that the large and prestigious Wall Street bankers, with such tall buildings and important names, century old reputation, so much marble, granite and stainless steel, etc. `have' to be ethical, professional and give you a good service for your money. They can't be a sham; or can they? Introducing Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker. This is a book that is hard to put down. For a person like me, not very familiar with the doings of the stock market, banks, etc. this is extraordinarily revealing. What an education! This book should be required reading in any MBA program.

The books is very entertaining and easy reading, Lewis' style is fun. There are some stories so amusing that I had to put the book aside until finished laughing. Constant references are made to true names, places and newpaper articles at the time of the events described. All this gives it the color of truth. I `googled' the Author and the book, and could not find a single article refuting any part of this book. Given the fame achieved by being listed as a # 1 bestseller in the New York Times, if someone had something to say, I am sure we would know by know.

I happen to have a neighbor who worked as a stock broker for a decade or so. To my questions, especially to why he quit (he is still young and not a millionaire), he just handed me his copy of this book. He only added `there is a dark underbelly to trading'. And was he right!

This book shows, from the inside, the inner workings of the famous, prestigious and powerful Wall Street banks. Nothing sugarcoated, the plain truth. I read the last 20 pages very slowly because I did not want the book to end.