Review of "Freakonomics"
I just finished reading Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (an early Father's Day present). Probably, my biggest disappointment was that I'd heard so much about the book that I knew about all of the facts and arguments presented before I even opened it up because I'd read multiple reviews and had been reading the weblog. This made the book less novel for me, but I still enjoyed the explainations behind the arguments. The issues examined include cheating on standardized tests, changes in the crime rate, the economic structure of crack gangs and an evaluation of the importance of people's names. The examinations of each are kept lively but backed up with analysis of the data.
The premise of the book as completely unorthodox in the field of economics is not quite correct - guys like Gary Becker have been analyzing a wide variety of social phenomena using the tools of economics for decades (in fact, the authors point out in a few places that Adam Smith himself applied economic thinking to non-economic topics) but that doesn't detract from the quality of the work.
I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in an examination of important (and some not-so-important) social issues. You don't have to invest much time as it is a very quick read, the writing style is entertaining and you will learn a thing or two.