[tptacek]

Flash Boys is a god-awful mess. Two better alternatives:

Kovacs' _Flash Boys: Not So Fast_ which in the best possible way reads like a long-form ELI5 Reddit post about modern trading and all the WTFWAT moments in Lewis' book: http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-F...

Patterson's _Dark Pools_ which tells the story of Island and the ECNs and the advent of automated trading. Patterson is more ambivalent about HFT than Kovacs, and does a good job of explaining the Core Wars phenomenon of modern trading from '98 to the mid-'00s.

[Donch]

Read all three! Thanks for the reading list extension and gratuitous downvote :-)

[cpach]

As you very well know, HN votes are anonymous. Why make assumptions about who voted? It doesn't contribute to the discussion at all.

[tptacek]

I upvoted you.