Rating: 
Summary: Just kidding
Review: Kids mean serious business on the Internet. So next time you are serious about something say " Just kidding". Michael Lewis certainly has a very powerful style of story telling.Last time he took us on a "trip" was on "Hyperion"- the ultra modern sailboat of Jim Clark ( " The New New Thing"). This book certainly makes good reading, in fact absorbing and fascinating. But at the end of all the kidding (I mean serious business) one is left wondering what on earth is happening. It starts on a serious note (here serious is not kidding) on the first page and with a few weird facts thrown in (Kids making serious money on the Internet), the Internet ends and imagination takes over. There is more hype (like hyperion) than substance- Generalizations and conclusions drawn from isolated events that are hard to replicate. Emotion rules over reason and the bubble grows bigger and bigger. Read this book like a novel. Just kidding.
Rating: 
Summary: Impressive thoughts and great examples
Review: This book was something I counted on to enjoy, and still surprised me with solid facts.The idea about living different personalities on the Net is true. You experience it when you are chatting every time. Lewis has shown the Net's various faces, what it can (could) do, through the real life examples of the stock wizard kid, the legal advisor kid, and via Marillion - the band who reemerged financially via their Net-fans. It is an greatly entertaining read, and I felt great just to share these real stories with my friends. If you want to expand your imagination what the Net is capable of, it is a must read for you!
Rating:
Summary: really good
Review: Lewis knows what he writes aboutand then he has a magnificent senseof humor. I read Liars Poker because I had played the game foryears and it was easy for me to understand the comparison to wallstreet games. Now, anyone who usesa computer and has heard what theSEC is all about, should enjoy thestories in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I could not put the book down. I enjoyed reading it and will look for other books by the author.
Rating:
Summary: Audio CD Version
Review: Would just like to add that Lewis, unlike many authors, reads his book very well, adding another element of pleasure to an already provocative and insightful book.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: Couldn't put it down. As usual Lewis entertains his reader with dry mocking wit, while giving the reader powerful and radical concepts to consider. Lewis takes the ongoing commentary and analysis of the internet to the next level. By analyzing some "fringe cases" such as a 14 yr old manipulating the stock market he makes a strong case that the "outsiders" ability to challenge the "insiders" has been turbo-charged. Every MBA should read this book or just put his head in the sand.
Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: You won't regret reading this one. It is on of those books that you will always remember. You will learn a lot while having a great time reading. Michael Lewis did a great job once again!
Rating: 
Summary: Marginal
Review: In the Internet world of Michael Lewis most adults are stupid, incompetent and narrow-minded while children are quick to adapt, quick witted and just want to be left alone by the suppressive establishment. Although there are salient points relative to the potential changes in personal and business relationships brought on by the communication capabilities of the Internet, I found the attempts to stereotype the people in the book in order to make a point diminished the very points he is attempting to make. A more objective rendering would have been more informative.
Rating:
Summary: Great reporting with sharp insights and laugh out loud humor
Review: This is NOT one of those tedious and hyperventilating books pompously declaring that the Internet has made all human knowledge before 1996 obsolete. Aren't we thankful for that? I know I am. This delightful book insightfully reports some of the ways our world culture is changed and re-ordered because of the way the Internet has flattened the structure and availability of information. Mr. Lewis uses the image of a pancake versus a pyramid. That is, through the web anyone can be an expert and everyone can communicate with everyone else. Privileged positions are evaporated. As he illustrates with several of his vignettes, not only does no one on the Internet know you are a dog, they don't know that the stock trader or the person dispensing legal advice or social theory is a fourteen or fifteen year old typing away from some nook in his parents' house. Mr. Lewis digs deeper than most and his writing has color and bite that is often laugh out loud funny and makes his points vividly. For example, he digs out the facts and tells a more complete version of the teenage stock trader who was forced by the SEC to pay a quarter of a million dollar fine. By interviewing Lebed's parents, his accusers at the SEC, and the wunderkind's teenage fellow traders, the author let's us see how the adults flounder in trying to understand what is happening to their world and how the youngsters breath this stuff so naturally they don't even see the revolution they are waging. I think Mr. Lewis's point that the kid wasn't doing anything actually malicious is spot on and that the real "crime" is that he was using all of the tools available to him more proficiently than the old elite. While I enjoyed every story in the book, the bit about the 10,000 year clock and the Long Now Foundation was particularly and disturbingly funny. We are shown a bunch of rich over-achievers going through their mid-life crisis by engaging in a bunch of self-important pseudo-intellectual analysis (for example, Stonehenge is a failed monument!). I won't reveal Mr. Lewis's punch line to this bit, but it is terrific. This is no alarmist piece and there are few bold predictions of the future (except around TiVo and television of the future) and that is wonderfully refreshing after so many years of fully amped hype around the frictionless future. What we do get is a tour around the way some wonderfully creative outsiders have faced necessity in their lives and used some inexpensive tools to invert their station in life. This is great stuff that is worth reading more than once and thinking about very carefully.
Rating: 
Summary: Next! Skip it, this is Lewis's "mulligan"
Review: Michael Lewis is a gifted story teller when he is talking about a single subject, most often a person. I read his book on Jim Clark "The New New Thing" with great interest. However, Lewis does not live up to his talent. In golf when you make a bad shot its called a "mulligan" or do over. This is Lewis's mulligan, in my humble opinion. This book reads like his left over notes from talking to people about the internet. His central premise, that the internet lets you go beyond your normal persona, is a topic better suited for pulp magazines and newspaper "Lifestyle" sections. The stories he tells of teenage lawyers and stock traders was old news in over a year ago! In addition the stories have no life in them they are mearly repeating what has been said before. Case in point is the three pages of Court Testimony Lewis copies into his book when discussing a 14 year old day trader. This isn't writing its reporting. I get the distinct feeling that Lewis had some leftover notes from his work on "new new thing" and that he rounded them up with some money from the BBC to write this book. If your still reading this review, I would skip this one entirely as there is little here in terms of insight or fresh material. If you have not read the New New Thing, pick it up as it is great. I would skip this one.
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