The Birth of the Pill (2014), Eig's fourth book, told the story of the renegades who invented the first oral contraceptive. For his third book, Get Capone, Eig discovered thousands of pages of never-before-reported government documents on the government's case against Capone. Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season was his second book. Įig's first book was Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (2005). Esquire also called Eig's book Luckiest Man one of the 100 best baseball books]of all time. In 2020, Esquire magazine called Ali one of the 35 best sports books ever written. In 2019 Men's Health magazine named Eig's book Ali: A Life the 23rd best sports book of all time. In 2016, Eig appeared on AMC's The Making of the Mob: Chicago, talking about Al Capone. He is currently working with Burns as a consulting producer on a documentary about Muhammad Ali. He has appeared in two PBS documentaries- Prohibition and Jackie Robinson-made by Ken Burns and Florentine Films. He lives in Chicago.Įig appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in May 2010. He is married to Jennifer Tescher and has three children. He has written as a freelancer for many outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and online edition of The New Yorker. Eig has taught writing at Columbia College Chicago and lectures at Northwestern. After college he worked as a news reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Dallas Morning News, Chicago magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. He attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, graduating in 1986 with a bachelor's degree. Eig began working for his hometown newspaper when he was 16. His father was an accountant and his mother was a stay-at-home mom and community activist. Biography Įig was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Monsey, New York. His most recent book, Ali: A Life, is a biography of Muhammad Ali. Jonathan Eig (born April 26, 1964) is an American journalist and biographer and the author of five books.

The Birth of the Pill by Jonathan Eig