Freakonomics

By: Jan Bunny
Date: 23rd Nov 05
Format: Book
Motivation: Improve your dinner conversation

What:
Freakonomics

Who:
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Where:
ALL GOOD BOOKSTORES or online

Cleanse and tone your inner geek with Freakonomics, the perfect nerd enema.

Using the minds of Steven D. Levitt (Ph.D. in economics, and part of the exclusive Harvard Society of Fellows) and co-writer Stephen J.Dubner (New York Times) each chapter tackles delicious questions like 'why drug dealers still live with their mums'.

The riddles of everyday life; from cheating and crime to sports and why parents still name children Brittany, are solved. Freakonomics turns conventional wisdom, very satisfyingly, on its head.

A controversial theory from Levitt (he reasoned that the downturn in crime in the US in the 1990s was due to legalised abortion in many states by 1973, thus never giving potential criminals the chance at life) landed him in a lot of hot water. It's this unusual thinking that makes Freakonomics a great summer read.