Freakonomics

A few months ago Donna mentioned Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's book, Freakonomics. I'd seen the book at the library - I even checked it out, but returned it without reading it because I had no time and other books seemed more interesting.

But Donna encouraged me to give it a try, and when I saw the audio book for sale at the library for fifty cents, I decided to listen to it.

This revised and expanded version is 8 hours long, and is read by one of the authors, Stephen J. Dubner. I listened to it in the car during the month of September. Several times, I had passengers with me who, although they thought they'd be bored to sleep listening to a book on economics, listened with fascination and without complaint.

Steven D. Levitt's studies in economics are not typical. He is mainly interested in lying, cheating, and crime. In this book I learned about cheating teachers, how real-estate agents take care of their best interests, the structure of drug gangs, how child-rearing experts work, what effect the legalization of abortion had on violent crime, how one's name can affect his success in life, and more.

This is not like the other economics books we have, but I think it's a "keeper."