I’ve dedicated this page to list the books I’ve read with few comments on my impressions of each. Have some book suggestions? List them in the comments!

January (and end of December)

• Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
  • Partial autobiography of Lewis’ time in the 80’s working on Wall Street in the 1980s at Soloman Brothers;
  • The book is pretty wild and highlights the excesses and risk taking behaviors of Wall Street, along with the culture of greed and disappointment of big bonuses that weren’t as big as the other guys
  • Mortgage bond trading and the excesses of debt and risk
  • Definitely worth reading, Michael Lewis is a gifted storyteller
• The Big Short by Michael Lewis
  • Later made into a movie, the book is a fascinating review of the building housing bubble in the early 2000’s and the subsequent pop.
  • Explains how Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) turned the home mortgage into a speculative business for Wallstreet and fueled low lending standards;
  • Tells the story of several groups that shorted (bet it would go down) the CDO’s and the insanity of the markets at the time;
  • Helped me understand something I previously didn’t quite get: Falling housing prices alone have no impact on someone’s ability to pay their mortgage, so should have no impact on defaulting on a mortgage, so I never fully understood why the crash left so many defaults. The answer is that predatory lending practices resulted in teaser rates on loans for an introductory period, and then the rates would go up. The building bubble allowed under funded borrowers to simply refinance with new fees at new lower teaser rates, over and over. However, once the credit dried up and home values dropped, they couldn’t refinance, and thus defaults skyrocketed;
  • Interesting insights into human nature and belief, and the folly’s that can follow;
• The Snowball by Alice Schroeder
  • Probably the most comprehensive biography of famed inventor Warren Buffet. As a longtime fan of Buffet’s approach to investing I enjoyed most of this very long book
  • Understanding Buffet’s path from cigar butt investing stock picker using the value investing rules handed down by Benjamin Graham, to a building Berkshire into the powerhouse it is today, in in particular the learning and changing in his approach and thinking is fascinating
  • Influence of Charlie Munger on Buffet’s thinking
  • It helps us realize that Buffet is one of a kind and no one should expect to recreate what he has done… however, there are some important lessons that if you stay rational you can do quite well.