Book review: Freakonomics

Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt (Rating: ***¹/₂)

Yes, I finally read this.

I thought this book was only so-so. Perhaps all the hype surrounding it raised expectations too much but my problem with this was that it was a little dumbed down. Which isn't a bad thing in itself, it just means that the book targets a wide audience. But it wasn't for me. I don't want to have to wade through calculus when I read a book for leisure but it would be nice to be mentally challenged every so often. (Lest you think I'm being an insufferable know-it-all twit, read the book and judge for yourself!)

It's a book full of interesting anecdotes. You could pick it up, flip to any chapter at random and not be lost. Some would say that that's the beauty of it but I like my reading to be "progressive", if that makes sense. To be fair, the preface does say that the book has no overarching theme, no grand conclusions and all that, so it's not like I didn't have fair warning.

My other complaint about the book is that nearly all the examples written about are backward-looking. Meaning, look at some data and derive a relationship retrospectively. Implications for the future are few and far between, aside from the major one that intuitive answers aren't necessarily correct answers.

Overall, a good, accessible tome but without any blinding insights.

Comments

[books]

ravi, form the looks of it, you're expecting too much from this book. its meant to get the layman into economics and i think Levitt and Dubner did a great job at that.

[Murli Ravi]

So... you're saying the same thing I said phrased differently. You said it's "meant to get the layman into economics" and I said it "targets a wide audience". I thought my review was pretty balanced; in fact, the marketing agent of Levitt's next book asked me whether I'd review that one too.

Call me Murli.