Michael Lewis is an American nonfiction author and journalist. Born in New Orleans in 1960, he studied art history at Princeton University and economics at the London School of Economics. His early employment in finance supplied the background for Liar’s Poker, an account of Wall Street and his work at Salomon Brothers.
His later books examine financial markets, decision-making, government, technology, and sport through reported accounts of individuals and institutions. Moneyball followed the Oakland Athletics’ approach to evaluating baseball players, while The Blind Side connected the development of a football position with the life of Michael Oher. Both books were adapted into feature films.
Lewis has also written shorter personal accounts and audio originals. Coach returns to his own school baseball experience, and Playing to Win examines youth softball through his involvement as a parent. His work frequently combines an individual story with an explanation of the economic or organizational system surrounding it.
Michael Lewis Books
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Baseball Books
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game: Lewis follows Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane as the club attempts to compete with teams able to spend more on players. The 2002 season frames an investigation of how statistical analysis identified skills undervalued by conventional scouting. Players, executives, and independent researchers appear in an account of recruitment, evidence, and resistance to new methods of judging what contributes to winning baseball games.
Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life: Lewis returns to his experience playing school baseball under coach Billy Fitzgerald in New Orleans. A particular game and Fitzgerald’s demanding expectations frame the author’s examination of confidence, discipline, responsibility, and sacrifice. The short memoir considers how the coach’s methods affected Lewis as a teenager and how those lessons remained relevant when he looked back on his education and upbringing as an adult.
Football Books
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game: Lewis connects the increasing value of the offensive left tackle with the development of Michael Oher, a young football player whose physical abilities attracted college recruiters. The narrative describes Oher’s educational and family circumstances as presented in the book, alongside changes in professional strategy that made protecting a quarterback’s blind side especially important. These parallel histories link an individual prospect with the economics and tactics of football.
Youth Sports
Playing to Win: Beginning with his family’s involvement in girls’ softball, Lewis examines the expanding cost and intensity of American youth sport. The audio original follows the travel, spending, and expectations attached to competitive programs. Coaches, parents, and businesses form part of an account of how after-school participation becomes an industry, with scholarships, college admissions, and hopes of future success shaping decisions made around children who are still playing the game.
Decision-Making
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds: Lewis follows the collaboration between psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and their investigations of judgment under uncertainty. Their research challenged assumptions about rational decision-making and influenced economics, medicine, and other fields. The book also examines the friendship, differing personalities, and tensions behind the work. Its subject connects with questions about evaluation and evidence raised in Moneyball, while extending well beyond sport.
Other Writing
Lewis’s wider bibliography includes The Big Short, about participants who recognized weaknesses before the financial crisis, Flash Boys, about high-frequency trading, and The Fifth Risk, about government expertise and administration. Later work includes Going Infinite, about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. These titles form part of his reporting on money, power, and institutional decisions rather than his sports bibliography.