Author: Michael Lewis
Enjoyment Rating: 5/10
Referral: I bought this for Eddie for Christmas
Source: Hardback copy
Books I've read this year: 12
When I first started listening to the Planet Money podcast a few years ago, I thought it was pretty funny that I, someone who doesn't know much about money, other than how to spend it, was listening to a podcast about economics. But when I told people how great it was, I always said to them, "It's kind of like listening to a Michael Lewis book." I'd read Moneyball and The Big Short, and I related to those books in a similar way-- they were fun for even someone who isn't an economist, or who doesn't care a whit about baseball.
So it was a foregone conclusion that I would read Boomerang. And you know that aphorism about the student surpassing the master? I'm not sure if the people at Planet Money are students of Michael Lewis's (although I know he's mentioned frequently on the show) but I do think that, at least in this case, the Planet Money is out-Lewising Lewis.
In Boomerang, Lewis travels to five failing or precarious economies around the world (Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany-- the exception, and his home state of California). He writes a single chapter about his visit to each place-- getting banged by the bruisers in Iceland, hanging with the monks in Greece, etc... He paints some pretty stereotypical pictures of the people in these places, and he really doesn't delve all that deeply into the stories. I get the sense that he's rich and famous, and people will buy his books regardless of how good they are, so he's going on a junket around Europe and writing about it. I could do that. I expect Michael Lewis to do the kinds of things I can't do. Furthermore, the people at Planet Money have already done it-- they've already been to Iceland and Greece and Germany and done similar reporting. So the book was a bit of a disappointment to me as a reader. Ed, who doesn't listen to Planet Money, really enjoyed it.
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