The Spectator podcast returns next week, but meanwhile, here's an episode of our Books

podcast, which, like this one, comes out every week. It's presented by Sam Leith, our literary

editor, and he's in conversation here with Michael Lewis. If you like it, then please do consider

subscribing to the Spectator Books podcast on the iTunes Store. Hello and welcome to the

Spectator's Books Podcast. I'm Sam Leith, literary editor of The Spectator Books Podcast on the iTunes Store. Hello and welcome to the Spectator's Books Podcast.

I'm Sam Leith, literary editor of The Spectator.

And this week I'm in conversation with Michael Lewis, celebrated author of Moneyball and The Big

Short, his latest book, The Undoing Project, is an account of friendship between Daniel

Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

In a first of the Spectator podcast, this has been recorded in front of a live audience, which accounts

with the background noise. Michael, to start with, can I just ask you a lot of people, I

think, might go on the face of it. There's this guy who's written many books, but has

become really best known for writing about business and finance

and about sport. And suddenly you've hauled off and apparently written a book about two

slightly nerdy academic psychologists. I mean, can you talk a bit about how these, you know,

Kahneman and Tversky connect to the rest of your work? Let me tell you how I stumbled into the story, basically,

because I didn't think, you know, I never think how does it connect to my work?

Like, is this my story?

Or does it fit into the larger?

The things are each separate story.

So even though you can see patterns in the subject manner, I'm not looking for it when I decide to write a book.

So what happened, and I agree, though, that it was an odd topic for me to take on.

...