Rating: 
Summary: a great book
Review: I'd read several Amis novels then I asked an Amis fanatic which was his favorite. He responed "Money - Absolutey, no question about it". So I checked it out. After reading it, I couldn't agree more. It always bothers me trying to say a book reflects a certain time period -i.e., everyone on this page says this is some sort of 80s timepiece. Do you have to be a 20s flapper to appreciate 'The Great Gatsby'? Do you have to be a 50s beat to like 'On the Road'? My point : If its good - its good regardless of setting and "Money' is great book for any era.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, Risky, Bawdy, Brilliant
Review: In "Money", Martin Amis shows us John Self, a director of TV commercials who is moving up professionally to direct his first movie. The producer of this movie, Fielding Goodney, treats John as THE key player in the deal, despite John's serious drinking problem and his continuing embarrassing and bawdy misbehavior. Until the book's final section, John lives this crazy can't-be-real opportunity, with hilarious Hollywood-style production problems and apparently limitless funding. In reading this novel, I kept wondering how Self's producer could overlook-even encourage-his personal shenanigans, which would obviously undermine a movie project in the real world. But in the last section of "Money", Amis explains, as he shifts his focus from John Self's hilarious debauchery to plot analysis. Then, a character named Martin Amis, a writer brought on board to salvage a disastrous script, unravels the mystery and reveals the true dynamic of John Self and Fielding Goodney. At the book's end, the achievement of Martin Amis, the author, is clear. He has written a brilliant, entertaining, risky novel, telling a funny and implausible story that ultimately makes perfect sense. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Man hasn't evolved in recent times - quite the opposite...
Review: In this novel I believe Martin Amis truely achieves the classic he says he has always strived towards. The raw ironic humour of his writing and the depiction of the main character John Self is an apt snapshot of part of modern urban life. Self is a self obsessed, sex-addict alchoholic not having the ability to truley care for someone (including himself)in any wholesome way due to obsession with success in the form of 'Money'. Even though he is in the movie buisness he doesn't really care for it as long as he gets the big contract. For me this tends to reflect Self as being analogous to our urban working society as it becomes more important to people to have objects of desire rather than the human basics of affection, comfort and wellbeing. He seems to suggest a belief that man has not evolved but in recent times has begun to devolve in character and spirit. In general it is gripping, shockingly hilarious at times and a story which should make those who encounter it reflect on their lives and ask the question 'Do I need this pair of Armani underpants or should i have a quiet night in with my shhweetheart instead'..........I go for the night in every time. Also, who ever said you need to watch stand-up comedy to hear great one-liners. Just read this instead. (One worrying point about it though is that I have never met a female who liked this book ?).
Rating:
Summary: A high water mark for Britain's literary bad boy
Review: John Self's life is out of control. His Fiasco is on the blink, his movie plans sabotaged by a zoological conspiracy, his sock has rent due. It's money that's the root of the problem, at least after you over look constant inebriation and an obsession with pornography. Amis's punk poetry/novel is a must read of the dissolute, self involved, chaotic world of the 80's yuppies.
Rating: 
Summary: sketch w/o substance
Review: Like the other reviewers, I share an admiration for Amis' prose, creativity, and wit; unlike many others, however, I thought the book was pure, self-indulgent (no pun intended)..., a work of brilliant creativity, but lacking utterly in substance or thought. Beyond an amusing character sketch, it has no plot, says nothing new, and adds nothing beyond (still another) caricature of 80s materialism. After the first 100 pages, I could have skipped the remaining 250 -- same stuff repackaged, variations on a theme that, however creative, becomes a bore when it hits you that the book is not going anywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Ambivalence
Review: Martin Amis is a widely praised author, and with good reason. He's gone on record saying that writing is 'inredibly easy' for him, and I don't doubt that measure, and it's not a bad thing. Reading anything of his, one gets the sense of a highly sharp-witted man with an in-born feel for the way words work together, and for comedy. The problem is that this utter facility with the minute and the imediate-one liners and brilliant flares of imagery-tends to let in problems with the overall conception of the work, and Money is a case in point. The minutiae are virtually at war with the overall movement of the book.While Amis' CONSCIENCE is in good places with this one(satirizing 80s excess and greed, mysogyny, the media, and pornography), the book seems to shamble along for 300 pages, and then stop, and when its over, you feel as though nothing really happened, and, truth to tell, not a whole lot does, at least nothing decisive. One isn't entirely surprised to run aground on the surprise ending, which manages to be both completely and totally left field and a disappointing cop out at the same time. Put another way:it's like listening to a story somebody 'absolutely must' tell you for five hours, but they never actually get to the point. Along the way though, you can laugh, gag, and grimace along with John Self's always-entertainig adventures in drinking, pornography and the filmmaking industry. The tone Amis manages to sustain for so long is nothing less than miraculous, and Self's observations will always garner a reaction(Not always a good one:I remember quoting one particularly harsh paragraph to a friend of mine and her only reply was,"Nope. I can't do that one."). Taken with distance, and at small doses, it's worth having a look at.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny
Review: Martin Amis would be a better writer if he wrote more than one draft. He wings its more than Rushdie. This book is funny, but it is hard to follow, and at the end, it is hard to recall what was read. No real story. No real value.
Rating:
Summary: Very dark, and very funny
Review: Money is a helter-skelter ride through a seedy world that both feeds and is fed by a desire for money. Greed kills, but only when it is feeling kind. The rest of the time, greed plays with you like a puppet on a string, making the victim dance to an intoxicating rhythm. John Self is a despicable character, but is very easy to love. He represents the ignorant, arrogant, selfish hedonist that is inside all of us to some degree. His narrative is a drug fuelled tirade against anyone and anything that doesnt suit his own needs. A mockery of his own greed - Self knows he is immoral, but just doesnt care right now. To read Money is to be a voyeur into a life that is both attractive and repulsive... and very entertaining!
Rating:
Summary: "I have money but I can't control it."
Review: Money. It makes the world go 'round, and that's the problem. It seems the Earth's spinning on its axis has less to do with physics and more to do with those who don't have money chasing those who have it. And novelist/satirist Martin Amis cashes in on the corrupting influence of currency with his delightfully savage book, MONEY. Director John Self is a self-admitted loser. There's not much to like about him: he smokes too much, drinks too much--he's an irresponsible buffoon with an addiction to porn and prostitutes. But he's got money, and as he waits for the financing of his next film to come together, he makes London and New York his sinful playgrounds. Leapfrogging back and forth across the pond, he leaves a shambled trail of self-destruction in his wake. Over the course of his bizarre journey, John shares his thoughts and philosophy on the intricacies of life: Life according to John Self, a drunken bugger with money. In fact, the story happily plays a second fiddle to John's reflections, and John's reflections carry the story from one zany mishap to the next. Amis is sheer genius. He writes with a demented pomposity--a politically incorrect finger-in-your-eye--that has the reader laughing one moment, cringing the next. With a clever tongue-in-cheek device to show nothing is sacred, he even inserts himself into the story. It's fascinating reading, as Amis allows his protagonist's thoughts to wander all over the dysfunctional map of human corruption (often within the same paragraph). MONEY is a triumphant satire that blasts away at our consumer culture and reveals our fragile human foibles. It is the type of book I wish I had the backbone to write.
--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON
Rating:
Summary: "I have money but I can't control it."
Review: Money. It makes the world go 'round, and that's the problem. It seems the Earth's spinning on its axis has less to do with physics and more to do with those who don't have money chasing those who have it. And novelist/satirist Martin Amis cashes in on the corrupting influence of currency with his delightfully savage book, MONEY. Director John Self is a self-admitted loser. There's not much to like about him: he smokes too much, drinks too much--he's an irresponsible buffoon with an addiction to porn and prostitutes. But he's got money, and as he waits for the financing of his next film to come together, he makes London and New York his sinful playgrounds. Leapfrogging back and forth across the pond, he leaves a shambled trail of self-destruction in his wake. Over the course of his bizarre journey, John shares his thoughts and philosophy on the intricacies of life: Life according to John Self, a drunken bugger with money. In fact, the story happily plays a second fiddle to John's reflections, and John's reflections carry the story from one zany mishap to the next. Amis is sheer genius. He writes with a demented pomposity--a politically incorrect finger-in-your-eye--that has the reader laughing one moment, cringing the next. With a clever tongue-in-cheek device to show nothing is sacred, he even inserts himself into the story. It's fascinating reading, as Amis allows his protagonist's thoughts to wander all over the dysfunctional map of human corruption (often within the same paragraph). MONEY is a triumphant satire that blasts away at our consumer culture and reveals our fragile human foibles. It is the type of book I wish I had the backbone to write.
--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON
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