Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland Athletics, their larger-than-life general manger, Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts, Michael Lewis has written not only "the single most influential baseball book ever" (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what "may be the best book ever written on business" (Weekly Standard).

I wrote this book because I fell in love with a story. The story concerned a small group of undervalued professional baseball players and executives, many of whom had been rejected as unfit for the big leagues, who had turned themselves into one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball. But the idea for the book came well before I had good reason to write it—before I had a story to fall in love with. It began, really, with an innocent question: how did one of the poorest teams in baseball, the Oakland Athletics, win so many games?

With these words Michael Lewis launches us into the funniest, smartest, and most contrarian book since, well, since Liar's Poker. Moneyball is a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the front offices of major league teams, and the dugouts, perhaps even in the minds of the players themselves. Lewis mines all these possibilities—his intimate and original portraits of big league ballplayers are alone worth the price of admission—but the real jackpot is a cache of numbers—numbers!—collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers and physics professors.

What these geek numbers show—no, prove—is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information has been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics.

Billy paid attention to those numbers —with the second lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to—and this book records his astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. Moneyball is a roller coaster ride: before the 2002 season opens, Oakland must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players, is written off by just about everyone, and then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins.

In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win...how can we not cheer for David?

Much of The New New Thing, to be fair, is devoted to the Healtheon story. It's just that Jim Clark doesn't do startups the way most people do. "He had ceased to be a businessman," as Lewis puts it, "and become a conceptual artist." After coming up with the basic idea for Healtheon, securing the initial seed money, and hiring the people to make it happen, Clark concentrated on the building of Hyperion, a sailboat with a 197-foot mast, whose functions are controlled by 25 SGI workstations (a boat that, if he wanted to, Clark could log onto and steer--from anywhere in the world). Keeping up with Clark proves a monumental challenge--"you didn't interact with him," Lewis notes, "so much as hitch a ride on the back of his life"--but one that the author rises to meet with the same frenetic energy and humor of his previous books, Liar's Poker and Trail Fever.

Like those two books, The New New Thing shows how the pursuit of power at its highest levels can lead to the very edges of the surreal, as when Clark tries to fill out an investment profile for a Swiss bank, where he intends to deposit less than .05 percent of his financial assets. When asked to assess his attitude toward financial risk, Clark searches in vain for the category of "people who sought to turn ten million dollars into one billion in a few months" and finally tells the banker, "I think this is for a different ... person." There have been a lot of profiles of Silicon Valley companies and the way they've revamped the economy in the 1990s--The New New Thing is one of the first books fully to depict the sort of man that has made such companies possible. --Ron Hogan

When it comes to markets, the first deadly sin is greed. Michael Lewis is our jungle guide through five of the most violent and costly upheavals in recent financial history: the crash of '87, the Russian default (and the subsequent collapse of Long-Term Capital Management), the Asian currency crisis of 1999, the Internet bubble, and the current sub-prime mortgage disaster. With his trademark humor and brilliant anecdotes, Lewis paints the mood and market factors leading up to each event, weaves contemporary accounts to show what people thought was happening at the time, and then, with the luxury of hindsight, analyzes what actually happened and what we should have learned from experience.

As he proved in Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, and Moneyball, Lewis is without peer in his understanding of market forces and human foibles. He is also, arguably, the funniest serious writer in America.

"There are teachers with a rare ability to enter a child's mind; it's as if their ability to get there at all gives them the right to stay forever."

There was a turning point in Michael Lewis's life, in a baseball game when he was fourteen years old. The irascible and often terrifying Coach Fitz put the ball in his hand with the game on the line and managed to convey such confident trust in Lewis's ability that the boy had no choice but to live up to it. "I didn't have words for it then, but I do now: I am about to show the world, and myself, what I can do."

The coach's message was not simply about winning but about self-respect, sacrifice, courage, and endurance. In some ways, and now thirty years later, Lewis still finds himself trying to measure up to what Coach Fitz expected of him. 14 illustrations.

“Two thumbs up.... This book will broaden your knowledge of the game.”
—Ron Newman, all-time winningest American Soccer Coach

“This book will help people to understand why soccer is the world’s sport and why we love it so much.”
—Tiffeny Milbrett, Forward, U.S. Women’s National Team

“Fans will love it, and those who want to become fans will devour it.”
—Bob Ley, ESPN/ABC Broadcaster

Simplicity alone doesn’t explain soccer’s enormous popularity worldwide. Soccer is a game that can be as frustrating as golf, as physical as football and hockey, as sporadic as baseball, and as graceful as basketball. It can also be addictive. Whether you are a youth league player, a soccer parent, or a World Cup fan, here, at last, is the book you’ve been waiting for. Written by New York Daily News soccer columnist Michael Lewis with the full support and participation of the United States Soccer Federation, Soccer For Dummies shows you how to: <ul> <li>Get a handle on soccer rules and regulations <li>Learn the basic moves and plays <li>Improve dribbling, passing, and other basic skills <li>Find a league to play in <li>Coach kids effectively <li>Get more out of the game as a spectator

Featuring expert tips from U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Soccer Team stars and packed with hundreds of action photos and illustrations, Soccer For Dummies is the ultimate beginner’s guide to the sport. You’ll discover: <ul> <li>The where and wear of soccer <li>Laws of the game <li>Footwork, passing, shooting, receiving, goal tending, and other game fundamentals <li>Staying in soccer shape <li>Teamwork and strategy <li>Coaching youth soccer <li>Everything the informed spectator should know <li>The current state of soccer at all levels from youth leagues to geriatric leagues

Get Soccer For Dummies and get the lowdown on the world’s most popular sport from some of its most celebrated players.

This book engages with the entire development of Lacan's thought in its attempt to demonstrate that the philosopher presents an alternative to Derrida's understanding of the nature of "archi-writing." It represents a systematic development of Slavoj Zizek's presentation of a Lacanian alternative to Derridean deconstruction and will be of interest to all readers in continental thought, transcendental philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and the relations between philosophy, the natural, and human sciences.

A historical perspective is given with extensive game and round commentary. One chapter recalls the most memorable games in each tournament. Another chapter is devoted to the best and brightest players.

The qualifying rounds of the international soccer competition are summarized, highlighting the pivotal games for each of the 32 qualifying nations. The twelve German venues for the tournament are discussed, assessing the pros and cons of each site.

The centerpiece of the book is an entry for each qualifying team descibing the country, previous appearances and history, qualifying games, key players, player pool, probable lineup and a short discussion of how the team will fare in this competition.

The US team players and coaches are all profiled in one chapter. A second chapter reports and recounts the US team's qualifying efforts game-by-game.

Many interesting features, anecdotes, and trivia on the participating teams are sprinkled throughout the text -- for example, Mussolini was said to have telegrammed the Italian team, "Win or die." They won.

A historical perspective is given with extensive game and round commentary. One chapter recalls the most memorable games in each tournament. Another chapter is devoted to the best and brightest players.

The qualifying rounds of the international soccer competition are summarized, highlighting the pivotal games for each of the 32 qualifying nations. The twelve German venues for the tournament are discussed, assessing the pros and cons of each site.

The centerpiece of the book is an entry for each qualifying team descibing the country, previous appearances and history, qualifying games, key players, player pool, probable lineup and a short discussion of how the team will fare in this competition.

The US team players and coaches are all profiled in one chapter. A second chapter reports and recounts the US team's qualifying efforts game-by-game.

Many interesting features, anecdotes, and trivia on the participating teams are sprinkled throughout the text -- for example, Mussolini was said to have telegrammed the Italian team, "Win or die." They won.

Features the region's best routes and attractions, including:

* Towns and cities, historical and cultural sites, natural areas, plus many surprises
* Entertaining, insightful commentary
* Useful travel tips
* More than 120 original, color photographs
* Detailed maps for each drive keyed to descriptions in text
* Directions, mileages, and visitor information

Acclaimed nature writers with extensive knowledge of each region enrich the guidebooks with enticing narratives and rich insights into the areas' landscapes and natural histories. Each book includes:

Packed with in-depth information, these invaluable guides help readers take full advantage of all the beauty and variety of the great American outdoors.