Michael Lewis

You just told me before we got on that your mom wants you to write a book.

And now you're getting me to give you the title.

Oh, that's not bad.

How long does it take you typically to come up with a book title?

It usually arises organically from the writing of the book.

And it usually is agony.

If you saw the false starts, you'd be horrified.

you would be horrified.

Liar's Poker.

The title on the book proposal was Fast and Loose in the Golden Years.

It was horrible.

It was never going to last.

There were 74 others like that.

The Big Short was a little different because I came into the story at a snail's pace.

I was reluctant to get into it in the first place because I thought Wall Street...

Wall Street was so pissed off about Liar's Poker, I did not think they would let me back in and that I just wouldn't be able to get the story.

So I went in, I stuck a toe in the water and did a magazine piece during which I figured out, I realized, oh my God, I can get this.

And when I realized it was about this simple bet and it was about the people who were on the right side of the bet and the bet was a short, the big short, that phrase just popped into my mind.

And I remember thinking, I'm not going to tell the magazine about that because I want to save it for the book.

It was too good of a title.