Michael Lewis is well known for leaving that crazy finance career behind to pursue writing full time. Because his time spent on Wall Street was bananas he had some pretty good source material to work from for his first few novels. He started to become a household name as movies based on his books Moneyball and The Blind Side hit the big screen and gained critical acclaim. Personally, I loved Moneyball the movie and still need to read that book when I get a chance. I picked up Liar’s Poker because I was on a finance kick and still learning more about the field. Wanting to hear personal accounts of the famous 1980s Wall Street seemed like a cool way to dip my toes. I regard finance and the high intensity coked up traders of the 80s almost as highly as I regard the Italian Mafia, both being topics I can’t get enough of. Liar’s Poker is not Wolf of Wall Street just to be clear. But what it is is a real account of a guy who thought landing this job was the answer to all his problems. But soon after realized it created more problems than he could ever imagine. And when the Salomon Brothers firm finally went under Lewis exposes the underbelly of the financial world and we learn it isn’t all Lamborghini’s and Rolex’s. The only thing worse than the consequences of this world are the gods that play Liar’s Poker that exploit them.