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nadia 's review for:
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael Lewis
informative
slow-paced
This was one of the oldest books on my TBR! The Big Short is one of my all-time faves and I really enjoyed The Undoing Project and Liar's Poker. I would say Michael Lewis is one of my fave nonfiction writers and I was excited to finally get into Moneyball, knowing that I wouldn't have to know much about the game itself to get something out of it.
And while that was certainly true, the book was a lot more technical than I was expecting, without enough of a breakdown for baseball newbies. I get this book was largely for a US audience, but I expected more in the way of explaining certain terms or a breakdown of the rules of the game. I managed to piece most of it together, but even by the end, I'd struggle to visualise certain plays, which impacted my understanding of the arguments being made or the reasoning being explained.
Ultimately, I found myself bored for decent chunks of it because I found that I just didn't care. Despite that, I loved the character stories throughout the book and just the general story of people going about things differently in an industry set in their ways to get better results. I'm always a fan of narratives like that, and I'd say that it's a credit to Michael Lewis in general that despite how little I cared for the baseball specifics I was always still interested to keep going and see how everything played out.
If you love baseball then this is a must-read I think. If you like sports in general, underdog stories, or data-based decision making, especially in places where it isn't typically used, or just stories of people going against the grain and trying to shake up an industry that doesn't welcome that behaviour, then this is also a book for you! But you might have to be patient and perhaps read up on the rules and common plays/strategies of baseball first if you're unfamiliar!
UPDATE: Was just looking through an old travel journal and saw that the one baseball game I've ever been to featured the Oakland A's! It was Oakland vs. the Houston Astros at the O.co Coliseum on April 25th 2015. Houston won 9-3. Cool!
And while that was certainly true, the book was a lot more technical than I was expecting, without enough of a breakdown for baseball newbies. I get this book was largely for a US audience, but I expected more in the way of explaining certain terms or a breakdown of the rules of the game. I managed to piece most of it together, but even by the end, I'd struggle to visualise certain plays, which impacted my understanding of the arguments being made or the reasoning being explained.
Ultimately, I found myself bored for decent chunks of it because I found that I just didn't care. Despite that, I loved the character stories throughout the book and just the general story of people going about things differently in an industry set in their ways to get better results. I'm always a fan of narratives like that, and I'd say that it's a credit to Michael Lewis in general that despite how little I cared for the baseball specifics I was always still interested to keep going and see how everything played out.
If you love baseball then this is a must-read I think. If you like sports in general, underdog stories, or data-based decision making, especially in places where it isn't typically used, or just stories of people going against the grain and trying to shake up an industry that doesn't welcome that behaviour, then this is also a book for you! But you might have to be patient and perhaps read up on the rules and common plays/strategies of baseball first if you're unfamiliar!
UPDATE: Was just looking through an old travel journal and saw that the one baseball game I've ever been to featured the Oakland A's! It was Oakland vs. the Houston Astros at the O.co Coliseum on April 25th 2015. Houston won 9-3. Cool!