The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Book Review: Good but different from Moneyball
Summary: 4 Stars
If you liked Moneyball and are hoping this will be its spiritual successor, it's not. It's much more a story of one player, Michael Oher, and his travels through high school and college football (as of July 2008 he's still in college so no pro career to speak of).
I used to work as a lawyer for a pro football team so I read these kinds of stories with some personal interest, but if you're looking for a pure sports book buy Moneyball. If you like Lewis' writing style and his ability to tell a story you won't be disappointed at all. It's a great story and does contain an interesting analysis of the development of college and pro football and especially the role of the left tackle in the new offence. But it's much more personal than Moneyball - much more in the style of Liar's Poker, which becomes explained in the afterword when you discover that he knows the family described in the book personally and so he had significantly more insight into their private lives than an ordinary author.
Book Review: THE BLIND SIDE by Michael Lewis
Summary: 4 Stars
The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis, is primarily a biography of projected future NFL first-round draft pick Michael Oher and secondarily a history of the evolution of the left tackle position in the NFL.
Lewis chronicles how Oher, who bounced around as a child and never learned to learn, was taken in by the wealthy Tuohy family, how they helped him to learn and to play football, and how he went on to start at Ole Miss. Lewis does an excellent job communicating the characters' personalities to the reader, particularly Oher's.
Interspersed throughout the book are historical anecdotes about the evolution of the left tackle position. Lewis gives particular attention to Lawrence Taylor and the shift to fast, destructive pass rushers, and to Bill Walsh, who was one of the first coaches to emphasize protection of the quarterback's blind side.
While Lewis tells a very interesting story, his writing style has its flaws. He jumps around quite a bit, which is almost as distracting (he just does it one too many times) as the sentence fragments he loves to sprinkle in. Lewis also uses the wrong word a few times. He mixes up "insure" and "ensure". He calls linemen "ectomorphs" (ectomorphs have slender builds). The copy editor for this book was asleep at the switch.
On the whole, this is an interesting and entertaining book about a likable young man, and a good recap of a major strategic shift in the NFL.
Book Review: Possibly Lewis' best
Summary: 5 Stars
Moneyball was as insightful as it was cutting edge, but Blindside goes to another level entirely.
The glimpses into the mechanics of football, coaching and player selection are brilliant. The humanitarian side is another story all it's own. Lewis doesn't pull any punches as he details the circumstances surrounding the discovery of Big Mike by the Tuohys, nor does he gloss over the potential self-serving interests that could have been at the heart of the Tuohys benevolance.
All of these moving parts beautifully packaged into a fantastic (and true) story.
As great as his other books were, I have to give this one the nudge as his best work so far.
Book Review: Great one
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great book about the exlposion on Left Tackle. I assume that all of us can answer the question: Why are left tackles being paid and rated so high since the past decade? We all know because they protect quaterbacks' blind side. This book explores in details the answer to the question plus the life of the most rated high school left tackle M. Oher (He almost went to NFL this year but decided to finish his senior year at Ole Miss).
This book is very educated and entertaining while trickering various emotions from Oher's life story. Football fans can't miss this.
Book Review: Moneyball meets Friday Night Lights
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Lewis has done it again, presenting an overview of the evolution within a sport, while providing insightful social commentary within the context of a captivating story.
Like in Moneyball, Lewis tracks the evolution of a major sport within the course of a generation; and like Friday Night Lights (by Buzz Bissinger), the social commentary about the role of sports, the values of our society, and the impact of race/wealth/privilege are presented through a heartful mosaic of incidents. I was especially impressed by the way this story highlights how unequal access to "the system" can be for kids growing up in different backgrounds (not a huge surprise), but what a case study!
I couldn't put the book down and finished at 4 am. I will concur with a previous reviewer who felt a little bamboozled by the disclosure in the afterword about Lewis's relationship with the Tuohys. On the face of it, it seems like there should have been disclosure BEFORE reading the book - allowing the reader to make of it what he would.