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Lewis was twenty-four, with a Princeton degree in art history and a masters from the LSE, when he found himself selling bonds at Salomon Brothers and watching grown men make fortunes they could not explain. He quit after three years and wrote Liar's Poker (1989), intending it as a warning; students wrote to him asking for more tips. That has been the pattern ever since. He finds one person who noticed something everybody else missed — a baseball manager using statistics nobody respected, a handful of investors who saw the mortgage market was going to collapse, a public health officer shouting about a virus in January 2020 — and builds the whole system around them. Moneyball, The Big Short and The Blind Side all became major films. The Undoing Project tells the story of Kahneman and Tversky, The Fifth Risk and the edited collection Who Is Government? (2025) are about the civil servants nobody thanks, and Going Infinite (2023) followed Sam Bankman-Fried into the collapse of FTX and got him the worst reviews of his career. His next book, Blockers, is published on 6 October 2026. The ten below are chosen on method, access and scepticism.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Narrative non-fiction · Blockers out 6 October 2026 · Updated September 2026
Quick answer
Malcolm Gladwell is the name most often paired with his, and David Grann the one who does the same thing with history. John McPhee taught the form at Princeton before either of them. Four reporters cover the same financial ground with more suspicion built in, Daniel Kahneman is the science behind one of Lewis's best books, and one reporter covered the FTX collapse in the same season and reached the opposite conclusion.
Where to start if you loved Michael Lewis
If you want the closest match, read Malcolm Gladwell.
Revenge of the Tipping Point. His own ideas, and his corrections to them.
If you want the same method in the past, read David Grann.
Killers of the Flower Moon. Osage murders, oil money, and the making of the FBI.
If you want the ancestor, read John McPhee.
Oranges. A hundred and fifty pages about oranges, and it is wonderful.
If you want one book from this page, read Patrick Radden Keefe.
Empire of Pain. Three generations of Sacklers, written under threat of litigation.
If you want the argument against him, read Zeke Faux.
Number Go Up. Same subject, same season, no access, opposite verdict.
If you want more non-fiction of this kind
My shelf of the best non-fiction has the rest.
10 authors like Michael Lewis
Frequently asked questions about authors like Michael Lewis
Who should I read if I love Michael Lewis?
Malcolm Gladwell is the standard pairing and David Grann does the same thing with history. John McPhee taught the form at Princeton before either of them and is the ancestor of the whole shelf. For the financial ground with more suspicion built in: Bethany McLean on Enron, John Carreyrou on Theranos, David Enrich on the banks and Christopher Leonard on corporations. Daniel Kahneman is the science behind The Undoing Project, Patrick Radden Keefe is the most complete practitioner working now, and Zeke Faux is the argument against.
What is Michael Lewis's new book?
Blockers, published on 6 October 2026. It follows six federal employees who became known as blockers in the new Washington — holdovers who did not get the message, who were treated as impediments and as people who did not belong. It continues the thread of The Fifth Risk (2018) and Who Is Government? (2025), the edited collection in which Lewis asked writers including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, Geraldine Brooks and Sarah Vowell to profile a civil servant. That book was a New York Times bestseller and one of Barack Obama's 2025 summer reads.
Which Michael Lewis book should I start with?
The Big Short (2010), which explains the 2008 financial crisis through a handful of people who saw it coming, and manages to make collateralised debt obligations genuinely thrilling. Moneyball (2003) if you want the one that changed an industry, and you do not need to care about baseball. The Undoing Project (2016) is the most intellectually substantial. The Premonition (2021), on the public health officials who were ignored in early 2020, is the one most people have not read and should.
What is the criticism of Going Infinite?
That he was too close to his subject. Lewis was introduced to Sam Bankman-Fried in 2021 and spent months with him, including through the collapse of FTX, and the resulting book argues that the exchange was arguably solvent until the end and that money prosecutors called embezzled may not have been stolen. Reviewers widely called it credulous and overly sympathetic, published as it was while Bankman-Fried was on trial for fraud. Lewis has rejected the criticism. Zeke Faux's Number Go Up, covering the same ground without access, is the fastest way to weigh it yourself.
What happened with The Blind Side?
In 2023 Michael Oher, the subject of the 2006 book and the 2009 film, filed a legal petition alleging that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never adopted him but placed him in a conservatorship, and that he did not share in the profits from the story as he had believed. The Tuohys disputed the characterisation; a Tennessee court ended the conservatorship in September 2023. It is a serious complication for a book built on a redemption narrative, and worth knowing before reading it.
Is his method a problem?
It is the live question about him, and it is not settled. The method is access: get close to a person, understand the system through them, and write it from the inside. That produces The Big Short and The Premonition, which are superb, and it produces Going Infinite, where the closeness looks like capture. The counter-examples on this page — Carreyrou locked out by lawyers, Faux following the money, Grann in the archives — got their books without anyone's cooperation. Both approaches have produced great work. Only one can be managed by the subject.
Which of the films is worth watching?
The Big Short (2015), directed by Adam McKay, which solved the problem of explaining financial instruments on screen by having celebrities explain them to camera, and won the Academy Award for adapted screenplay. Moneyball (2011), with Brad Pitt, is the better film as a film. The Blind Side (2009) won Sandra Bullock an Oscar and should now be watched with the Oher dispute in mind.
What order should I read him in?
The Big Short, Moneyball, The Undoing Project, The Premonition, then Liar's Poker (1989), which is the origin story and still very funny about what Wall Street was like when he was inside it. The Fifth Risk and Who Is Government? are the civil service pair, and Blockers continues them in October 2026. Going Infinite is worth reading, with Zeke Faux beside it.
Footnotes
- Michael Lewis — official site, with Blockers publication date and biography
- Going Infinite — Wikipedia, with the critical reception
- Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service — Penguin Random House
- Michael Lewis on Who Is Government? — National Constitution Center, March 2025
- Michael Lewis — biography, career and awards
List last reviewed 23 September 2026.
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From the bookshelf
“The art of winning an unfair game.”
— Michael Lewis, Moneyball, 2003.
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