Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

This is a book that got written accidentally – in preparing to write “The Big Short,” Michael Lewis realized he had enough material on country-specific bubbles to write another book. This is that book.

Each chapter is a look at a particular country – Iceland, Ireland, Germany, California (almost a country, really) – and some economic bubble percolating there. Lewis traveled to the countries, and each story is set-off a travelogue of what he was doing (for instance, in California, he goes bike-riding with ex-governor Schwarzenegger).

It’s an interesting (and somewhat short) read about how stupid people can be (and how economic fantasies are universal), but I don’t know that I learned much from it.