Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is a 30k foot level view of the financial crisis, poorly conceived, poorly executed. I've read just about all of Michael Lewis's books and articles covering the financial crisis, and he did a piece for Portfolio Mag. before it went under about the same topic. By the end of that article I was on the edge of my seat because he took you INTO the action, you were sitting there making a trade. I still remember Lewis's description of the traders in his article sitting in Sept. 08, shaking, watching traders leave the NY Stock exchange, knowing what they'd just pulled off. Anyway, compare that to this... the whole thing is written with an air of naivete and awestruck envy, like as if Zuckerman asked Paulson to put together a roundup of his accomplishments so the former could introduce the latter at a cocktail party or something, or Zuckerman wants to get invited to the big "bashes" he continually says Paulson hosts. Zuckerman also looses credibility throughout the book. For example, on page 72, Zuckerman discusses Paulson's first foray into Credit Default Swaps (CDSes). After making a $500k bet, to insure $100 million, he writes "Soon their position faced some small losses. They discovered that the value of CDS protection falls as the underlying debt gets closer to maturity." OK, really? Zuckerman expects me to believe that they didn't know this? Paulson and co had been playing in derivative markets for decades, and this is standard behavior of most, perhaps all, date-based derivatives, and I think I learned this in my undergrad finance course the first week. Zuckerman gradually looses credibility like this the whole book until @ the end we wonder if he really knows what he's writing about. Another example of the just strange reporting (p. 38): "Paulson went out of his way to embrace Jenny and her family. The couple agreed to wed in an Episcopalian church in Southhampton, and Paulson became friendly with the priest. Light streamed through the seaside church's Tiffany windows as the sun set and the ceremony began." You would, reasonably, expect this paragraph to be followed by, well, a description of the ceremony perhaps? Or an anecdote on the significance of Paulson getting friendly w/ the priest? You'd be wrong on both counts -- this is just an example of many strange irrelevant facts unskillfully woven into the book -- the next paragraph actually jumps forward 3 years and talks about other aspects of Paulson's private life. That's all we hear about the priest and the ceremony! Anyway, the writing style here is not well developed -- gets annoying after about the first 50 pages.