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  • Boomerang

  • Travels in the New Third World
  • Written by: Michael Lewis
  • Narrated by: Dylan Baker
  • Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (62 ratings)

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Boomerang

Written by: Michael Lewis
Narrated by: Dylan Baker
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Publisher's Summary

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Big Short, Liar’s Poker and The Blind Side!

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.

The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata 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.

The trademark of Michael Lewis’s best sellers is to tell an important and complex story through characters so outsized and outrageously weird that you’d think they have to be invented. (You’d be wrong.) In Boomerang, we meet a brilliant monk who has figured out how to game Greek capitalism to save his failing monastery; a cod fisherman who, with three days’ training, becomes a currency trader for an Icelandic bank; and an Irish real estate developer so outraged by the collapse of his business that he drives across the country to attack the Irish Parliament with his earth-moving equipment.

Lewis’s investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American listener to a comfortable complacency: Oh, those foolish foreigners. But when Lewis 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.

©2011 Michael Lewis (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

What the critics say

“No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Lewis.” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)

What listeners say about Boomerang

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  • 2021-05-25

Rapidly becoming my favorite non-fiction writer.

Every one of these investigative pieces from Michael has an eye for details but centered around the heart of the fascinating characters he digs up.

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  • Overall
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great book!

Great narrator! Great story and really puts the Sovereign Debt Crisis into a relatable perspective. Reinforced my belief that debt in general is terrible. My only criticism would be the chapter on Ireland. it didn't draw me in as much as others. Definitely liked the chapters on Iceland and Greece the most.

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Overall found book to be entertaining and informative.

The introduction leading to the discussion of Germany and Germans felt inappropriate. All other content in the book was great.

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