Book · 1989
Liar's Poker
by Michael Lewis
A first-year Salomon Brothers trader logs the daily absurdity of 1980s Wall Street from the trading floor to the bathroom stalls.
What does Reddit think of Liar's Poker?
Six mentions across three subreddits over seven years. Not a juggernaut. But the book's footprint is more coherent than the count suggests: r/investing accounts for four of those six, and the tone there is consistently recommendatory without being reverential. The typical move is to pair it with The Big Short — one commenter at ↑26 puts it plainly, "Big Short and Liars Poker are excellent reads. Skip Flash Boys though." That backhanded Flash Boys dismissal keeps coming up; Lewis fans use Liar's Poker as the baseline to judge his later work. The r/Bogleheads drop at ↑48 is the most quoted passage: the audiobook apparently makes Salomon's shark culture sound like Futurama's 80's Guy, which is both funny and damning. r/AskHistorians mentions it in passing while explaining the post-gold-standard dollar system. Sentiment lands broadly positive at around +0.28, though nobody's treating it as canonical finance scripture the way they treat When Genius Failed. It's a book people recommend because they actually enjoyed it, not because they feel obligated to.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · 1980s Wall Street trading culture
- · Salomon Brothers and the birth of mortgage-backed securities
- · Michael Lewis as narrator and participant
- · Finance as performance and theater
- · Comparison point for Lewis's later work
Common praise
- + r/investing readers pair it with The Big Short as a self-contained two-book primer on how Wall Street actually operates.
- + The Bogleheads audiobook crowd notes that Lewis's delivery makes the Salomon shark culture hit harder than reading it cold.
- + Survives repeated recommendations across seven years without anyone walking it back.
Common criticism
- − Flash Boys gets flagged as the skip in the Lewis catalog, implying the franchise has diminishing returns after Liar's Poker and The Big Short.
- − Only 6 mentions across the tracked subs suggest it rarely gets brought up organically outside direct "what finance book should I read" threads.
Who it's for
You already know what a bond desk does and want to understand how the culture calcified — this is your primary source. If you bounced off The Big Short because it felt too produced, Liar's Poker is closer to a journal. For Bogleheads types, it functions as anthropology: Lewis was inside the machine before he turned it into literature. Skip it if you want a systematic account of the 2008 crisis; this book ends decades earlier and is explicitly personal.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Liar's Poker?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“Former municipal bond investment banking analyst (underwriter) here. Really excited I have something to contribute here as munis are rarely in the spotlight. Some other comments have noted NJ’s credit profile as a reason not to buy their munis as the state could possibly declare bankruptcy/insolven…
“I just listened to Michael Lewis's audiobook for Liar's Poker and it's ridiculous how close the real thing is to Futurama's 80's guy. Minus the boneitis, of course. "There are two kinds of people: sheep and sharks. Anyone who's a sheep is fired... I'm proud to be the shepherd of this herd of sharks…
“Big Short and Liars Poker are excellent reads. Skip Flash Boys though.
“So, most political economists will tell you it's the shift off of the Gold Standard but will warn you off of phrases like "good" or "bad" because those are normative descriptions. Yes, the US was on the Gold Standard prior to 1971 but, perhaps more critically, the move off of the Gold Standard prec…
“When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management Liar's Poker
“I haven't read it myself, but I wonder what your criticism of it would be, because I tend to enjoy Lewis' writing. *Liar's Poker* and *Big Short* were both really good, in my opinion.
Convinced? Pick up Liar's Poker
What else does r/investing read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
The Intelligent Investor
Benjamin Graham
Benjamin Graham's 1949 framework for distinguishing investment from speculation, cited 100 times on Reddit by people still arguing whether it applies to today's markets.
The Simple Path to Wealth
JL Collins
A retired fund manager distills 40 years of index investing into one rule: buy VTSAX, ignore the noise, and wait.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street
Burton G. Malkiel
Burton Malkiel's 50-year argument that you can't beat the market, backed by data, and Reddit's most-cited reason to stop stock-picking.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
John C. Bogle
John Bogle's case for index funds in 200 pages: own the whole market, pay almost nothing, and wait — cited 262 times on Reddit and counting.
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Robert T. Kiyosaki
Tracked Reddit references and selected source excerpts for Rich Dad Poor Dad.
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel
Morgan Housel paid off a 3% mortgage early and calls it his best money decision ever — 209 Reddit mentions say the paradox is the whole point.
Liar's Poker — frequently asked
Is Liar's Poker still worth reading in 2026?+
Yes, if you want primary-source texture rather than a structured history. r/investing has recommended it consistently from 2019 through 2024 — the six mentions span five different years with no one recanting. The usual caveat is to read it alongside When Genius Failed rather than treating it as a complete picture of the era.
How does Liar's Poker compare to The Big Short?+
Reddit treats them as a matched pair. The r/investing comment at ↑26 endorses both and skips Flash Boys. The consensus framing is that Liar's Poker is Lewis in first person before he perfected the narrative-nonfiction formula, which makes it less polished but arguably more credible. The Big Short has more structural architecture; Liar's Poker has more direct witness.
What does Reddit actually say about Liar's Poker?+
The loudest moment is a Bogleheads thread (↑48) where someone describes the audiobook making Salomon's shark culture sound like a Futurama character — affectionately mocking, not dismissive.
Should I read Liar's Poker if I'm not in finance?+
Probably yes if you're curious about institutional behavior and how 1980s compensation structures shaped modern finance. r/AskHistorians cites it in the context of the post-gold-standard dollar — the book operates as cultural history as much as finance memoir. You don't need a Bloomberg terminal to follow it.