The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis Didn't Do It For Me

I've been a longtime fan of Michael Lewis, having read a half dozen of his books over the years. I recently started reading The Undoing Project and for some reason wasn't getting into it. I then decided to re-read Moneyball, the bestseller that later became a motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman. As with the first time, I again thoroughly enjoyed it.

This prompted me to go back and continue with The Undoing Project. It's not the first time I started a book, failed to connect and had better luck the next time. It was until my third effort with Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano that I not only engaged with but devoured it. Unfortunately, my second effort here yielded little fruit. If words were food, The Undoing Project was sawdust. Why was this?

I decided to go to Amazon and see what other readers were saying. Many liked the book very much, but there were others who expressed my sentiments as well.

--> This is my 10th or 11th Michael Lewis book and this is the only one I couldn't finish and did not enjoy. 

--> When this book was chosen for my book group, I looked forward to reading it. I have read other Michael Lewis books and totally enjoyed them, even when the topics were not a subject I was particularly interested it. Baseball! Derivatives! Why not psychology? Lewis' books always had energy and told an interesting tale. Not so with The Undoing Project. Nearly halfway through I stopped to read some reviews of the book because I had no idea what it was about or where it was going.

The book opens with Lewis talking about the challenges basketball teams have in determining who will succeed and who will not in pro basketball. Just as Moneyball focused on the Oakland A's, this book details challenges the Houston Rockets faced. 

Somewhere along the way it seemed I missed what this had with Undoing, but I hung in there, wondering where this would all be going. I'd read enough Lewis books to know that he is a storyteller, enjoys gathering details and sharing them in story form. Unfortunately, as these stories unfolded I was unable to see where they were all going.

There is a certain amount of trust that readers put in writers. If they trust the writer they continue reading, believing there will be a payoff for their efforts. The Fables of Aesop always had a payoff, but they did not require endless pages of story to get there.

The central story here is that of the friendship between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two Israeli psychologists and economists who did research on heuristics (among other things) in Eugene Oregon. Their work ultimately garnered them a Nobel Prize.

After the lengthy lead-in we arrive at the main event, which is presented in a meandering story that winds over the river and through the woods, but never arrives anywhere. Or at least, after passing the midway point, did not give me confidence that there was a destination. It felt like the story was supposed to be the destination. And I was not alone in this sentiment. Here's another Amazon reviewer:

--> I'm a huge Michael Lewis fan but this book was awful. It was tedious and trying to understand where he was going with the book was hopeless.

I can't say the book was awful. It just wasn't engaging, and I would suggest part of the reason had to do with the writing. Tedious is probably an accurate word. As a result, I lost faith that the story was taking me somewhere.

Be sure to read the positive Amazon reviews before you make up your mind on this one. This review is just my two cents from the peanut gallery.

Related Links

My review of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano

Moneyball Worth More Than the Price of Admission (A Review)