Perhaps you have heard of some of his books: “Liar’s Poker,” “Moneyball,” “The Blind Side,” “The Big Short” and “The Money Culture.” All are very engaging books because each one discusses a subject that arouses our curiosity and uncovers ideas about which we rarely think. “Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World” continues Michael Lewis’ extension of our curiosities with stories about the current global economic crisis that are both funny and educational at the same time.

The economy is a major issue for both parties in current political campaigns. “Boomerang” provides the reader with enough knowledge to at least know whether candidates really know what they are talking about. By using vocabulary familiar to ordinary people, who want to delve into a subject and still read for the sake of being entertained, Lewis does a very good job of holding your interest.

In early March, the International Monetary Fund and European Union agreed to loan Greece funds to temporarily stave off economic collapse. Lewis wrote the following in one of his Vanity Fair magazine pieces: “European leaders have done nothing but delay the inevitable reckoning, by scrambling every few months to find cash to plug the ever growing holes in Greece, Ireland and Portugal (economies), and praying that bigger and more alarming holes in Spain, Italy and France do not reveal themselves.”

For most of us, the economic news we hear daily goes completely over our heads. We do not understand it, even though we wish we did. And because it is dull stuff to read, we seldom read about it, even though we should. “Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World” explains the subprime market crisis. He goes on to explain how and why Greece is in such horrific financial trouble, and how Germany can hold the economies of financially troubled countries like Greece, Italy and Spain hostage. He does it with simple anecdotes that capture your imagination.

Like his Vanity Fair pieces, Boomerang is upbeat, fun to read and informative. In this book, Michael Lewis does not attempt to provide solutions to the problems he writes about – he acknowledges that he is not an economist, just a reporter and past travel writer.

In the book, Lewis travels from one country to another. Each tour starts with an introduction to the culture of the country. He then uses this cultural introduction to give the reader a basis to understand how countries got themselves into trouble. Lewis describes financial failures, investor regrets, banking disasters, regulator ineptitude and governmental bailouts.

The stories are wide-reaching. For instance, you get a chance to read about an order of monks who became one of the largest landowners in Greece by tricking local governments into giving them land; a cod fisherman, who, with less than a week of training, becomes a currency trader at an Icelandic bank; and Morgan Stanley devising complicated credit instruments that were all but certain to fail, so that it can make money by betting against them.

Michael Lewis has a robust sense of humor. In the chapter titled “The Secret Lives of Germans,” he uses the Germans’ love for mud-wrestling, where spectators are given plastic caps (a sort of head condom, he calls them) to avoid being splattered, while naked women fight in a ring of filth. Lewis writes that this epitomizes Germans longing to be near the dirt, but not in it. He follows this story with a comment that is typical Lewis: “This (allegory), as it turns out, is an excellent description of their role in the current financial crisis.”

California and its cities are Lewis’ favorite American targets. He talks about an early morning bike ride with then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lewis arrives wearing bike gear; the governor arrives wearing a green fleece top, shorts and beige slipper-like shoes “that suggest both an indifference to his own appearance and safety, and security in his own manhood.” Mr. Lewis goes on to describe the reckless abandon with which Schwarzenegger rode his bike. The episode is hilarious.

Then Lewis looks at Schwarzenegger as governor and in particular at his management of a state in financial trouble. Lewis credits the governor for trying to put California on the path away from financial failure by reforming workers’ compensation, enabling open primaries, and ensuring that legislative districts are drawn by an impartial committee rather than by the legislature. But, when it came to how the state raised and spent money, he loses. Pushing for tax increases to address California’s deficit issues, the legislature pushes back, and he has to capitulate.

“Boomerang” is a combination of insightful analysis and accounts of human folly. The reader will find multiple occasions to laugh in each of the book’s five chapters, while learning a great deal about global economics.

— Reviewed by Harold T. Little Jr., CPA, associate professor, Department of Accounting, Western Kentucky University.