Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsLife is not a poker game
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2011
I expected to read a lot about the men who gave Wall Street its bad name and I was not disappointed. The copy I bought was a little over 300 pages long and about 200 of those pages was devoted to the men working the phones and making the deals. Lewis devoted the final 100 pages to his career and both sections had interest and disillusionment contined therein. First, liar's poker was barely mentioned and I got the impression poker was chosen for euphony, the game as explained how played seemed much more like Scrabble, with money and/or its equivalent taking the place of words. That made an introduction to the men who worshipped money, lived for it, fought for it and what they did to acquire it, and how to use it as reward or punishment. The men's personaities shaped their companies and/or departments, their life codes and their struggles for what money they did get. Money was power, money was reward, money ruled their life.
Lewis showed how it attracted him, what benefits it could bring, how he could handle it and how he could handle other men in the struggle for the available money. He closed the book by saying he lost interest, he never knew what he was doing but he had the power to handle money and interest speculators in what he was doing. All his training and experience meant nought, he copied others to hide his lack of knowledge. However he made it all interesting but was it truthful? Even he said he did not know.
