There’s no single trick to making money — just resist a noble calling

‘Beauty is pain,’ the model Gigi Hadid asserts. She’s one of the successful, rich people quizzed by William Leith in The Trick: Why Some People Can Make Money and Other People Can’t. We all know a few of the tricks of getting rich. You start by avoiding noble, important professions that benefit everyone but pay poorly: primary school teacher, nurse, book reviewer. Those of my friends and family who’ve made money (although none has made it to rich) went into banking and business. Those who haven’t went into teaching, academic research and museum curating. That much is obvious. Has Leith unearthed a magic formula?

His book is part Hunter S. Thompson, part Montaigne: a blend of gonzo journalism and rambling reflection interspersed with learned references. In this marriage of memoir and essay, Leith is a sort of stoner Marx contemplating money — which is ‘weird’. He argues it isn’t real, but is, ‘because we think it’s real’.