Book Review: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner

As the author points out at the beginning of the book, there is no unifying theme to this point. That is true, however, it does not take away from the value of the book. If you like statistics and hearing anecdotal stories about how data can be used to explain real life events, this is a definite read.

The author goes into a wide variety of topics such as investigating teachers cheating, what has caused crime rates to drop since the 1980s, how parents affect the success of their children, and how their names play into that success (or not). Mr. Levitt has an interesting take on how the world works. He uses to mountains of data to explain social and human actions, which is very intriguing for me.

I listened to this book from Audible and despite all the facts and numbers, it was very easy to digest. At the very end he covered a bunch of lists, but the reader (his co-auther) was able to present it in way that was mostly understandable without having to listen to it again. However, that was the only time it was hard to listen to. The audible book was almost seven and half hours and I did not want to put it down.

I look forward to listening to the authors’ next book, Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. If it was half as interesting as this one, it will be still a good read.