I'm Michael Lewis, the author of The Big Short, Liar's Poker, Going Infinite, Moneyball, and so on. I listen to books on Audible, but I'm going to give you some books that I have not listened to yet because they're books I read when I was a kid, mostly—before the age of 25. They're books that I remember chiefly for the emotion generated in me: It was laughter. These are 5 books where I remember my stomach hurting from laughing so hard reading these things. I am actually going to listen to these on Audible because I want to see if the effect they had on me when I read them back when I was a kid is sustained when I'm listening to them now. —Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short
When I read it, I was 11 or 12 years old and I thought this time-shifting idea was just so funny. I remember laughing through the whole thing without a whole lot of sense of who Mark Twain was. It's a fun way to think about history.
Lucky Jim together with Changing Places by David Lodge are two of the funniest novels ever written, both English people—and Lodge was quite influenced by Amis, I think. They're send-ups of academic life, and we all need to laugh a little bit right now about what's going on in schools. I always felt school had this false seriousness to it, and what actually went on in school was quite different from what was supposed to go on in school. These books were right there from the start. The main characters are professors and they are mercilessly satirized, and it is just so good.
I don't know who shoved this book in my hand. It was written before I was born. It's about the rise of this con man in Canada—a street-smart kid who ends up wrapping the world around his finger. I don't remember very much about the book except it hurt to read it because I was laughing so hard.
George Plimpton's follow-up to Paper Lion. I read it when I was 11.
Michael Lewis is a bestselling author known for his investigative nonfiction articles and books. The Big Short a sequel to Liar’s Poker, became an Oscar-winning film. Lewis narrates this new edition of The Big Short.
