The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

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The financial crash of 2008 surprised almost everybody–the investment banks, the government, and the Federal Reserve, not to mention millions of American homeowners. In The Big Short, Michael Lewis tells the story of a handful of investors who saw it coming, who read the tea leaves in the mortgage market, recognized that it was unsustainable, and decided to bet against the system. They earned hundreds of millions of dollars off one of the worst economic collapses in history.


Lewis dives into the underworld of mortgage backed securities (MBS), collateralized debt obligations (CDO), and credit default swaps (CDS), explaining them all in incredible detail. Despite the technical discussion, if you stick with it Lewis rewards you: he manages to weave a story so fascinating that it reads like a thriller novel. I devoured it in just a few days.

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1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

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Reposting this 2013 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $3.25
Takeaway: The world is not what it seems.

This is a wide ranging book, originally written as a trilogy in Japanese .  It is hard to classify it as a genre, but I would probably call it a contemporary fantasy.  Although I think that most of the people that will like it would not pick up a book labeled fantasy as a first choice.

Aomame (the female protagonist) opens the book late for an appointment.  She is stuck on a skyway in a cab.  The cabbie suggests that if she really needs to get to her appointment she could get out of the cab, climb down an emergency ladder and take the subway (which has a stop near the bottom of the stairway.)

Aomame decides to do this, but the cabbie warns her that nothing will quite be the same once you have stepped outside the realm of your normal life.  And nothing is. Aomame is not going to any old business appointment.  She is on her way to assassinate a man who beats his wife.  She has a relationship with a rich older woman that provides her with information (and money and support) to kill men to stop them from beating their wives.

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Building a Life Out of Words by Shawn Smucker

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Often times when life throws us a curve ball, out natural tendency is to find some corner somewhere, cry in cup of coffee, and sing our favorite verse of poor, poor me. But what if we drew a deep breath, stepped back, and considered for a minute how we could use this opportunity to make a positive change of direction in our lives?

Shawn Smucker was faced with such a situation. After returning from four years of managing a large business in England, he felt lost working 10 hour days painting houses and living in his parent’s basement with his wife and two children. When his aunt called out of the blue and asked him to write her life story, he had no idea how his life would be impacted.

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The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of St Francis by Richard Rohr

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Summary: A series of six lectures on spiritual development.

Just over a year ago I first listened to The Art of Letting Go. And at the time I absorbed much, but also thought I needed a second listening. So I have slowly listened to this a second time over the past two weeks.

The strength and weakness of the book is its format as lecture/conversations.  It is formated as six lectures for those that would like to go on a spiritual retreat with Rohr but cannot. Rohr is clearly working off of notes but does tend to go off those notes occasionally and is not always as precise about his language as he could be. But at the same time this is very conversational and relaxed in tone.

One of the things I appreciate about reading Catholic priests and monks is that the Catholic church is much more comfortable with psychology and philosophy than the Evangelical world. But the flip side of that is that the language used by Catholics often has slightly different meanings (usually more precise academic meanings) than many Evangelicals are used to.

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CS Lewis: A Life by Alister McGrath

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Summary: An important, highly readable biography of Lewis.

More than several people agree that this is the best Lewis biography to date (see links below).  So far I have not read any negative reviews of Alister McGrath’s new biography.

McGrath unlike previous biographers was not a friend, student or family of Lewis.  And unlike previous biographers McGrath had access to an enormous library of Lewis’ correspondence which has led to a new understanding of Lewis.

McGrath also is planning a second, more academic evaluation of Lewis, so this book is written as a popular biography.  If there is a weakness of the book it is that it does not go into as much depth as I would like it to about several areas.  His spiritual development as a young Christian, how Lewis related to his step sons both before and after their mother’s death, and his theology are all areas I would have liked more depth. (Bookwi.se Note: I read A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of CS Lewis by Devin Brown after writing this review and it is a good supplement in this areas.)

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Wealth and Poverty: A New Edition by George Gilder

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A full-throated moral, philosophical, and practical defense of capitalism. Rather than advocate with reluctance for capitalism, granting critics’ charges of its excesses and a supposed foundation of greed, Gilder shows that only a capitalist system will bring true prosperity and growth to all levels of a society.

Gilder argues that the most important element of capitalistic growth and success is the entrepreneur, the person who puts up capital in risky ventures in the hope of a payout. These risks fail more often than they succeed, but in all cases knowledge is learned–knowledge upon which new ventures build.

Simply scanning topics he covers and the conclusions he draws, one might think Gilder is just pitching conservative Republican ideology warmed over. But his arguments eschew partisanship in favor of a philosophical, principled, and utterly researched approach. Gilder’s breadth of knowledge and understanding of economics and sociology is stimulating to encounter; having read his more recent (and even more theoretical) Knowledge & Power, I can see he is truly a polymath.

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The Giver by Lois Lowry (Book and Movie Review)

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The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993) is a children’s book that is about a seemingly utopian society where “œsameness” is what provides the people with stability. As the story progresses, we learn that the sameness has created a lack of emotion to the point where even the people do not experience color. Jonas, the main character and young teenager, learns the truth about his community as he is chosen to be the receiver of memories, which have been eradicated in order for sameness to be achieved. The giver is an old man who gives him these memories and with them comes the truth and many other revelations.

The Giver is a book that is read by many middle school and high school students as a way, it seems, to get young students interested in reading while at the same time encouraging them to think deeply about the text and its meaning. The book is set apart from many of the other required reading because of how recently it has been published compared to most other books such as Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and Mark Twain, etc. And, many critics disagree that The Giver should be lauded to the extent that it is. Many adults reflect fondly on the book while other groan about the chore of having to read it so many years ago.

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Tenth of December by George Saunders

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Takeaway: Another short story collection I didn’t like, surprise!

Anyone that has read my blog regularly over the past year or so will not be surprised that I didn’t like another collection of short stories.  That makes me 0.5 of 5 this year.  And it is not that the collections were poorly reviewed or by bad writers.  The collections I have read over the last year were by PJ Wodehouse, GK Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, and Flannery O’Connor and now George Saunders.  (Technically the Flannery O’Connor was a few days over a year ago.  And it was definitely the one I liked the best of the five.)

Given my general dislike of short stories you as reader are probably tired of me posting about not liking them.  But I keep wanting to read books that are well reviewed and generally loved.  Karen Swallow Prior gave Tenth of December very good review at Books and Culture. And it one the 10 best books by New York Times Book Review as well as winning some other awards.

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The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy’s Only Hope by John Allison

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John Allison was the CEO of one of the only large banks that stayed profitable during the financial upheaval that came to a head in 2008. During his 20 year tenure at BB&T, during which he lead based on the principles of Ayn Rand, the bank grew exponentially in its success (from assets of $4.5 billion to $152 billion). During the crisis, the federal government in essence forced BB&T to take bailout money, even though they didn’t want it or need it, and they were literally the very first bank to pay back the money once it was legal to do so.

It’s fair to say that Allison had a front seat to the financial crisis, but from the perspective of a healthy bank. During all the crazed activity in Washington running up to TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Plan””the massive bailout of the financial industry), while the Federal Reserve was propping up banks, insurance and other finance companies and dictating the sale of others, Allison tried multiple times to consult with leadership at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. But it was in vain–those making such monumental financial decisions weren’t interested in hearing from the healthy banks, just the dangerously overleveraged ones.

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