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

"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.