This is a book you probably will not read, although I lapped it up.
Others, with less refined taste than you, like it too. Last month it topped The Sunday Times hardback best seller list. As it costs £25 and has no illustrations that’s something. It is a true story by a first-time author charting his life from rags to riches and err riches. There is some Shakespearean catharsis but, spoiler, he stays rich.
His life story so far, he is not yet forty, was not the most interesting aspect for me. His explanation of FX, interests rates, economies and how they interact was instructive and would be a good primer for an “A” Level Economics student. It was pitched just right for me. On another level his depiction of the characters working in dealing rooms in London and Tokyo for Citibank brought back more than a few memories. Thank goodness I didn’t do FX as I have always had trouble getting my head round exchange and interest rates and the men who do are not, how shall I put it, the sort of colleagues likely to want to talk about the last opera they went to. It is set rather recently: 2006 – 2014. There are no women on the floor and just one in HR.
Gary, oh how many Garys did I come across, shows the folly of having a focus only on making money. Almost none of the characters are happy or even in some instances sane. This book will be in paperback in a few months beyond doubt. Give it to anybody with $$$ in their eyes looking for a job in the City.
Christopher, from your description and without yet having read the book, I am sure the elder brother of the boy broker could write a similar tale. Every cloud has a silver lining, but one must remember that every silver lining has a cloud with it.