Many of you are probably familiar with the hit movie, “The Blind Side.” It is based on a novel of the same name by Michael Lewis. The Blind Side is the story of a black high school boy named Michael Oher who has nothing but a gift for playing football to his credit. He is taken in by the Tuohy’s, a wealthy white Christian family who put him in a good high school and nurtures his talent for football. This book takes a glimpse at the personal bond between people from polar opposite ends of the spectrum in society.
In addition to covering Michael’s personal experiences, the novel takes a look at the game of football as a whole. It provides details on the history of the game and how it has evolved over the past 40 years.
Lewis is well known for writing sports themed novels, as well as ones that provide inside accounts on the business and financial market on Wall Street.
Lewis’s latest novel, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, really gets into the nitty gritty of the Wall Street melt down of 2007-2008. This novel is on the Kindle and Kindle DX Top 100 list. Based on one review, Lewis takes a unique perspective on the meltdown by using a group of obscure hedge fund managers as his cast of characters instead of the big names of Wall Street. The characters in this novel provide a lot of wisdom and insight on the crisis. They saw it coming before it actually began. I think it is neat to get the viewpoint of the people who are hidden from the public spotlight. They are easier to relate to and often are much more honest about the state of affairs.
The Big Short is a sequel in a sense to Liar’s Poker, a similar inside look at the recession of the 1980’s. Lewis worked as a bond salesman for a company called Salomon Brothers that pays him well despite little effort on his part. The reader gets a real glimpse of how Wall Street was run in the 1980’s, which reveals a shocking amount of treachery and deception. The novel describes the history of “junk bonds” and chronicles the events in the years that led to the stock market crash of 1987. Anyone who is interested in learning more about how Wall Street works or learning more about business terminology should read both books.