Books › Boomerang
Boomerang
240 pages
A darkly hilarious global tour of financial ruin that makes you laugh right up until the moment you realize the joke is on you.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like taking a guided tour through the wreckage of a global disaster with the world's most observant, sardonic tour guide. The pace is brisk and conversational, pulling you through complex macroeconomic concepts by focusing entirely on the absurd, deeply flawed humans at the center of the chaos. The mood is a strange cocktail of dark comedy and impending doom; you will find yourself laughing out loud at the sheer audacity of the financial delusions in Iceland or Greece, only to feel a cold knot of dread form as the narrative lens pivots closer to home. It is perfect for readers who love their non-fiction served with a heavy dose of wry wit, psychological insight, and a lingering sense of existential economic dread.
- Mood
- absurd
- exasperated
- impending doom
- darkly humorous
- Tone
- wry
- sardonic
- incredulous
- darkly comedic
- sharp
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- human folly · mass delusion · the psychology of greed · cultural hubris · consequences of unchecked ambition
- The writing
- Conversational, witty, and character-driven, effortlessly translating complex macroeconomic disasters into highly entertaining, accessible anecdotes.
- The arc
- Moves from amused disbelief at the absurdities of distant nations to a chilling, uncomfortable realization of domestic vulnerability.
- Who it's for
- Readers who enjoy narrative non-fiction that explains complex global events through the lens of human psychology, absurdity, and sharp storytelling.
Content notes
- financial ruin
- economic anxiety
About the book
As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." 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. Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata 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. Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he 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. - Publisher.
Description from Open Library.
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