Bombardiers: A Novel of Business

by Po Bronson

Book Overview

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller What Should I Do with My Life ?, Bombardiers is Po Bronson's first novel, a devastating satire of the business world told through the lens of a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679435417
• ISBN13: 9780679435419
• Release Date: February 1995
• Publisher: Random House
• Length: 319 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.5" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Still Bronson's best effort to date

I've read all of Bronson's books. Unlike earlier reviewers, I'm still partial to his fiction, and of the two books he's put out there, "Bombardiers" (vs. "The First $20 Million...") is by far the better work.Yes, it's funny, it's biting, it has that "Catch 22" thing going on...but it's also *very* educational. Bronson really understands markets and does a great job here getting their complexities down on paper in an engaging, even riveting, way - even when it involves something as trivial as the office breakfast.Very humorous and very highly recommended.

Hilarious AND Educational

Very fun and nasty satire of brokerage houses written by a briefly former insider. It's more of a fictional sociological study of the men and few women bond brokers of a San Francisco brokerage house. Standard types are presented, along with the motivations that drive them, and the lies by which they unload dubious securities. In all this Bronson is really going after the entire system which allows firms to profit massively from insane schemes and financial failures. Everything goes wacky at Atlantic Pacific when a new, young salesman appears on the floor. He ignores the rules, has the nature of a master salesman, and throws the system in a tizzy. It's all pretty over the top, but fun stuff with more than a kernel of truth.

Loved it, learned from it

I taught a business finance class this Spring and offered my students extra-credit for reading this book. My purpose was for them to learn more about finance while being entertained. This book is so funny that I shared it with friends (physics grad students) who loved it as much as I do.

Surreal and hilarious bond-trading yarn

Unputdownable and laugh out loud funny, I read this book in a day and a half. Unlike Liar's Poker, there's no attempt to explain the bonds being traded, instead Bronson seems convinced that not even the market participants really understand them and focuses on having some fun, and quickly!The sales managers are ogres, the bond salesmen themselves tortured heroes, or bastards, or idiots, or sometimes a combination of 2 or 3 of those, with some telepathic or clairvoyant skills thrown in if it will make things move along quicker. Revenge is sweet, and consumed often, served hot or cold. Stress nearly kills several characters, and ruins the life of many more. Relationships are as short and destructive as possible. But it's "cartoon violence" and the whole way the jokes keep coming thick and fast, and you're laughing so much that people are starting to ask what the hell you're reading!It's a wild ride, and hard to get off once you're on board. Read it!

Rip-Roaring Fun

It was a filthy profession, but the money was addicting and one addiction led to another... and so the novel begins and takes you on a journey into the absurd world of high finance, where the stakes are high, the traders are insane, the institutional customers are glory-hungry hacks, and the money become the grease that that keeps its bizzare machine humming at breakneck velocity. Bronsonsuccesfully takes the most absurd elements of high finance and weaves it into a cautionary tale of the price the new information economy extracts from its front-line foot soldiers. Sid's sales pitch of the Lincoln Convertible Bonds to a hapless fund manager alone is worth the price of the book -- where he browbeats and ridicules a timid portfolio manager into taking a $5 million position in a bond designed to finance the hostile takeover of a small ... country. Blisteringly hilarious, and darkly cynical it's the sort of work that good satirists should aspire to. Outrageous and fun for thosein the industry ... and a fair warning for ambitious college students wanting a shot at the glory in the capital of capitalism of investment banking.