Freakanomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

I’m probably one of the last people in america to read this book.

I read it this past weekend while we were up visiting my parents in
Kentucky. I had given it to my father for Christmas and he had spoken
glowingly of it; This made it significant, because he is one difficult
person to shop for.

It’s certainly a short read, as evidenced by the fact that I read it in
bits and pieces between Friday morning and Saturday night.

It’s an interesting tome. Most of the critiques of this book seem to
center around a lack of rigor or failure to demonstrate in detail the
analysis behind the assertions. But given that it’s written as a “pop
economics” book for mass appeal, this doesn’t really surprise or bother me
overmuch.

While I wouldn’t take any of the conclusions as gospel truth, it’s got a
bunch of fun stuff to think about, which is probably all it was meant to
be.