Live Interview 5/19/21: Michael Lewis and Geraldine Brooks

Live Interview 5/19/21: Michael Lewis and Geraldine Brooks

Author: Pushkin Industries June 16, 2021 Duration: 47:21

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks interviews Michael Lewis about his new book “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story.” They also discuss how Michael started his writing career and why growing up in New Orleans made him a better storyteller. This conversation was recorded as part of the Live Talks Los Angeles series and posted May 19, 2021.

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Fifteen years have passed since Michael Lewis published his defining work, Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion. In that time, the story of the 2008 financial crisis, first told in his best-selling book and later in an Oscar-winning film, has only grown more relevant. This audio companion, produced by Pushkin Industries, is not a simple retrospective. Instead, Lewis, joined by co-host Lidia Jean Kott, uses the anniversary as a starting point for a deeper investigation. They examine the enduring legacy of that seismic event-how its lessons were absorbed, ignored, or misunderstood in the worlds of business, culture, and even sports. Listeners are brought directly into conversations that feel both urgent and reflective, including Lewis catching up with the film's director, Adam McKay, and revisiting the real-life individuals whose stories fueled the original narrative. The result is a podcast that functions as a vital, living appendix to a modern classic, asking what we truly learned and how the rules of the game have-or haven't-changed since the house of cards came tumbling down. It’s an essential listen for anyone who wonders how the past continues to shape our present.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion
Podcast Episodes
On Background from Against the Rules [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:56
Michael Lewis's next book is all about Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the crypto-currency exchange FTX, who now faces federal charges. As with all of his books, Lewis is talking with experts to get background context on t…
Episode 7: The Person Who Knows [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:21
The United States had a pandemic plan. But when a pandemic came, we hesitated to follow it. The country was hobbled by argument and doubt. Much of that doubt came from experts who proposed that Covid might not be as leth…
Episode 6: The Overconfidence Game [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:32
In which several people, including Rebecca Solnit, Katty Kay, and Maria Konnikova, help Michael understand the not-so-secret power of men to offer themselves up as experts, when they clearly are not. If you’d like to kee…
Episode 5: The Sanchez Problem [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:02
There’s one kind of expert whose role is enshrined in law: that of the expert witness, who’s called on to bolster one side of a case. But courtrooms are not great places for nuance. Overconfident expert testimony has bee…
Episode 4: Respect the Polygon [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:00
Experts know more now than ever before. And we’re more critical of them than ever before, too. But one kind of expert really gets us riled up: the type who deals in probabilities. We hear from meteorologists, political f…
Episode 3: Field of Ignorance [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:27
The right kind of expert, at the right time, can change everything. While working as a security guard at a pork-and-beans cannery in Kansas, Bill James started writing about baseball. But writing about it through the poe…
Episode 1: Six Levels Down [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:17
Athenahealth was just another healthcare provider facing the biggest problem US doctors face: not treating patients, but getting insurance companies to pay their bills. But then the company figured out how to fix the pro…
Episode 2: The Art of the Untold Story [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:47
Why can’t we see the experts right in front of us, even when they're saving our lives? Maybe it's because the specialized knowledge of many experts defies good storytelling. We hear from a nonprofit trying to elevate the…
Against the Rules Season 3: The Ballad of Expertise [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:55
In “Against the Rules,” journalist and bestselling author Michael Lewis takes a searing look at what’s happened to fairness—in financial markets, newsrooms, basketball games, courts of law, and much more. In Season 3, Mi…
Other People’s Money: George Saunders on the Value of Failure [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:25
After the surprise success of Liar’s Poker, publishers urged Michael Lewis to try his hand at fiction. It was a bad idea. But even award-winning fiction authors have struggled with failure. Michael speaks with Booker Pri…