Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: When to Rob a Bank: ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants

Top positive review

15 people found this helpful

if you are willing to sort through a decade of blogs to hand pick the best of them

ByL. M. Massonon May 28, 2015

Ah, come on folks. The reviews are harsh, and the Steves are up front. You can read this for free on the blogs, if you are willing to sort through a decade of blogs to hand pick the best of them. If you find the blogs entertaining, and you don't mind reruns, then the book is great. I don't mind repeats. I haven't read every blog, or even most of them. There is also the comfort of having dead tree material in my hand for a change...
It's a good read, and you'll chuckle. What more do you want?

Top critical review

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86 people found this helpful

If you have the perception that this is a 10th anniversary bit of memorabilia, it becomes a better read

ByApolloon May 11, 2015

This book isn't so much a book, let alone a sequel to Freakonomics, as it is a celebration of 10 years of the Freakonomics branded state-of-mind. Little to nothing here is presented as thoroughly researched forays into unrelated anecdotes but rather it is more of a ticket into the minds of Levitt and Dubner who show they think about various topics in somewhat different ways (such as "Why Don't Flight Attendants Get Tipped?"). The book does expand beyond this idea of understanding the psychology of economists as well, offering "fun sized" pieces of Freakonomics, such as the story/stories about Jane Siberry. Additionally, there are just genuinely fun parts that celebrate the decade long run of this "new" way of thinking, as evident through the author's contests.

If you are expecting to thoroughly understand when to rob a bank or the cost of fearing strangers, then you should look elsewhere. This book is more of a piece of memorabilia that marks the 10th anniversary of the Freakonomics brand (the original book was published in 2005). The same way that die hard Harry Potter fans might purchase J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography 1997-2013, and fans of the Andy Griffith Show might purchase Mayberry Memories: The Andy Griffith Show Photo Album, fans of Freakonomics should buy this book to have a look behind the scenes of the mindset of the authors. Plus there are little bonuses along the way.

Now, most of this book, if not all of this book is from their blog. Which means most of this book, if not all of this book is available online. For free. So why did I buy it? For the same reason that people bought Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures: simply just to have a nice, updated collection of the author's/authors' anthology in the form of a tangible item. As for charging people for free material, perhaps the authors say it best: "Having grown up on the middle of nowhere himself, Dubner had always thought it strange that so many people would pay good money for a bottle of water. And yet they do, to the tune of roughly $100 billion a year. Suddenly a book of blog posts didn't seem so dumb. So in the tradition of Poland Springs, Evian, and other hydro-geniuses, we've decided to bottle something that was freely available and charge you money for it." Levitt and Dubner are just responding to incentives.

If it seems a little odd then that this is only a 3 star review given what I have been previously trying to argue, that is because there are still some aspects that take away from the experience. Poor editing is one. For example, on page 38, the first sentence in the section "The Next Time Your Daughter Brings Home A New Boyfriend, Be Sure To Ask His Middle Name," Levitt writes: I got an interesting a package..." (the authors write their blog posts separately they explain early in the book. So yes, it is Levitt as the SDL indicates below the entry's title.) This piece about middle names also serves as another example for how the book falls short. Some of these "taste" of Freakonomics, the pieces that seem like they are the springboard into something truly fascinating, do not go anywhere. Although, it truly seems like they should. The source of this middle name material came from a reader who had sent the authors pieces of articles that showed crimes were being committed by people whose middle names were Wayne. But there is nothing more than that. An anecdote like this begs an explanation, yet there is none to be found. It would be like if the (in)famous abortion piece was shortened to a couple of pages that essentially stated: "After decades of escalation, the rate of crime is dropping!" Pieces like this should have been excluded as to been further elaborated on in a true sequel (if that true sequel should ever happen).

Finally, why this book is getting 3 stars (from me anyway) is because of the authors' habit of providing theoretical solutions or conclusions in the forms of one or two sentences. It is one thing to show where the sources of their "What if..." or "How come..." questions originate from. It is further interesting to illustrate the seeds of these ideas that have presumably bloomed into full fledged Freakonomic pieces (as was partially the purpose of the Beatles Anthology CDs). But after only a few pages of introducing an idea, sometimes even far less, the authors will from time to time end by saying something along the lines of "My guess is that..." or "It would be better if..." These solutions and explanations and conclusions are not rooted in anything except for speculation. Which is something that anyone can do. Readers should not expect an answer for every problem in this book because this book is not about that. It is 131 examples of how to think differently (which does a better job by doing it indirectly than the direct approach of Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain). And there are some gems in the 131 examples. But the abbreviated conclusions negate these introductions to new ideas because they are not founded in data. Nor years of research. It is just the authors attempting to wrap up these little bits of stories by inserting their opinions. Which seems odd for the world of Homo economicus. Not to say that the authors shouldn't insert their opinions. But even when they blatantly say that it is a guess, it still undermines the fact that their actual conclusions of former pieces are based on data. And their success is based on their unique interpretation of the data.

All in all, it is an nice, quick read. It introduces some interesting thoughts but it does not take the time to explore them. Because that is not what this book is about. It is about the fact that for 10 years, the world has been shown how to think differently. That the world is not black and white. Nor are there just many shades of grey. But often, you may find hues of fuchsia. It is an anniversary of the creation of something interesting and addictive. It is a celebration that people from all walks of life have come together to join in on becoming Freaky. Through all its faults, and the faults are there, When To Rob A Bank is a nice afterward to the first decade, a little memento from Misters Levitt and Dubner.

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An afternoon with this book just might transform you into the most avoided person in the room...

ByLindsay Wincheraukon May 29, 2017

Format: Paperback

I picked up this book because of the title. I was excited to read it. I wanted to love it. I made a mistake. I found FREAKONOMICS lying around the house, hmm... same authors. I cracked it open. I didn’t love it. I liked it — maybe because I felt I was supposed to, the cover did after all tell me to “be prepared to be dazzled.” I’m sure many readers were.

WHEN TO ROB A BANK carries on down the same road as FREAKONOMICS: Economists taking the human element out of living turning it into a numerical entity, and in the process...

...missing what life is all about, being human.

The theories of the Author’s are at times compelling — no, not compelling, somewhat interesting, at best. How can I say that: 7-million copies sold, tell me: I don’t know much?

I like numbers, maybe love, but sometimes my OCD need to quote statistics may actually bore the crap out of anyone I spew them at, so I refrain. That’s the challenge with number lovers: they believe they are living in the world of non-fiction when actually they are writing fiction that will only turn into ‘NON’ if their predictions end up ringing true.

There is no doubt: Dubner + Levitt are brilliant analytical minds. Without question: they can write. And definitely: there is a large audience for their words. As for me, I found the book to be somewhat tedious, and since it is not about any individual’s life, the material can quickly become dated; the half-life, short. The book came out in 2015 — I finished it in 2017 — maybe I missed the prime reading window.

What I did find with WHEN TO ROB... unlike FREAKONOMICS, the material was broken into sections. This made it a difficult read. If a section didn’t grab my interest it was laborious to read. I READ ON. It felt like the waning interest of Year 3 of University as opposed to the excitement of Year 1.

I was going to give the book only 3 Stars — because it happens to have the odd delightful moment. That all changed when I hit Chapter 11: Kaleidoscopia. This is when, for me, the book became interesting. Instead of the organized chapters, it flowed freely. If I didn’t like a theory, not to worry, like a song on the radio, wait 3 or 4 minutes, and a new one would play, in this case: a few pages later. I found this to be far more enjoyable than the organized first 10 Chapters. But, still, this only brought my rating up to a 4.

Then, right near the end, Mr Levitt shared a heart-wrenching story: When a Daughter Dies. Immediately, this raised my rating to 4.5 — well above 5 for this section. Mr Levitt took the economist out of being an economist by sharing something immensely powerful and personal. I thank him for sharing.

Writing “well above 5” makes me feel like a bit of a... anyway, thanks again, for sharing.