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Theory & Philosophy Search Theory & Philosophy Theory & PhilosophyFreakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Penguin Search Penguin by Steven D. Levitt Stephen J. Dubner Search Steven D. Levitt Stephen J. Dubner
Customer Reviews:
Seriously interesting
A great book that looks at lots of different things in ways that no one has really considered before with some very interesting conclusions.
Gives the game away 
I quite enjoyed this book, but it's flawed.
As someone with no real grasp of economics, I found the perspective given on the various topics that Freakonomics covers interesting and enlightening. It had a noticable and lasting effect on the way I thought about things afterwards, which is generally a sign of a worthwhile read.
The main problem the book has, for my money, is the introductory chapter. It's like one of those film trailers that showcases all of the film's best moments, as well as giving away pretty much the whole plot, leaving the actual film with nothing more to do than to spend two hours joining the dots. Freakonomics has a fantastic introduction which effectively eviscerates the book. All of the authors' interesting observations are paraded in a few pages. The following chapters (ie most of the book) are then a bit of a let-down - they flesh out and support the corresponding paragraphs from the introduction, but they add very little in terms of new ideas.
I gather that a second book by these authors is out now, or soon. Hope they've fixed this structural problem for their second go around. I rather enjoyed what Freakonomics had to say, but piling up all the exciting revelations in the first half an hour before embarking on a couple of hundred pages of comparatively dull '...and here's how we worked that out' explanation isn't a sensible way to present it.
A quirky, clever book 
This book is a dual effort. An economics lecturer has joined forces with a New York Times lecturer to write a book that tries to answer questions like "Why do drug dealers live with their Mum?"
It is an interesting book, but I'm not sure that it's a book that you read in one sitting. I say this because there's no real flow to the book. The authors might address drug dealers in one chapter, and African-American names in the next. The result is that you don't necessarily build up any momentum as you move from one chapter to the next.
Don't get me wrong, this is an interesting book, and you will find the mental gymnastics that the authors have produced stimulating (because it is cleverly written). However, I don't think it's written in a the most fluid way possible, and that's why I've not given it 5*.
Freakonomics 
I was hoping for a fun and stimulating read to while away quiet hours spent staying with relatives in the country, but I found Freakonomics a big disappointment. The chapter on the link between abortion and crime is worth reading, but the rest of it is there just to enlarge a magazine article into a book full of unrelated chapters.
For a 'rogue economist' there's not much in the way of unusual viewpoints or radical ideas here, in fact most of it's pretty obvious and extremely padded out. It's also very American (apart from the sumos) and I often found myself wondering why I was reading this stuff - why was I supposed to be interested?
I'm afraid I came away with the feeling I'd fallen for a publishing scam rather than having learned anything worthwhile.
Great book. Interesting and enlightening.
Very enlightening and easy enough to follow. The book guides you to look at things differently and makes economics seem interesting.
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Freakonomics - TechBookReport
Keywords: Statistics, economics, politics, sociology, current affairs. Title: Freakonomics. Author: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Publisher: Penguin. ISBN: 0141019018. Media: Book. Verdict: Excellent reading. ...
http://www.techbookreport.com/tbr0241.html
freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of ...
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Freakonomics - London Book Review.com
Keywords: Economics, politics, sociology, current affairs. Title: Freakonomics. Authors: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Publisher: Penguin. ISBN: 0141019018. Buy US · Buy UK. Freakonomics is one of those books that sets people ...
http://www.londonbookreview.com/lbr0014.html
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on my xmas list i have freakonomics http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/product-description/0141019018/sr=1-1/qid=1197632162/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=utf8&n=266239&s=books&qid=1197632162&sr=1-1 , which isn't really a novel, and the cleft ...
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Marginal Revolution: Draw Your Own Conclusions
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Economics Reading list | The Greenwell Society
Freakonomics (Steve Levitt), Penguin, ISBN: 0141019018. Game Theory – Very Short Introduction: (Ken Binmore): ISBN: 0199218463. Great Crash of 1929 (JK Galbraith) ISBN: 0140136096 and other works by Galbraith ...
http://thegreenwellsociety.com/2008/02/17/economics-reading-list/
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