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on October 24, 2015
This is a fun read! Don't take it too seriously because telling when to rod a bank or how to be a terrorist might sound like terrorist talk, but when all is said and done, Levitt and Dubner show how they think and share some of their strange e-mail. I liked the book a lot! I would recommend it to a friend.
on February 2, 2016
If you're already a fan of Freakonomics, this book is for you! It's a collection of the best blog posts from their blog over the last 10 years. It's very much in the style of all of the Freakonomics books, includes a few posts from guest writers, and all in all is yet another fascinating, thought provoking, and head spinning take on a wide variety of subjects. The book is even a bit broader than their previous books as they hit a wider range of topics.
If you haven't read any of the Freakonomics books, this is a suitable introduction but I would highly recommend starting with their first book, Freakonomics, as the best introduction to this economist/journalist duo that have engender a cult following among many. If you like that book, then I highly recommend their other previous books Superfreakonomics and Think Like a Freak, in that order. If you read Freakonomics and didn't like it, then definitely don't bother with the others (although Think Like A Freak has some more practical applications than the other books).
If you haven't read any of the Freakonomics books, this is a suitable introduction but I would highly recommend starting with their first book, Freakonomics, as the best introduction to this economist/journalist duo that have engender a cult following among many. If you like that book, then I highly recommend their other previous books Superfreakonomics and Think Like a Freak, in that order. If you read Freakonomics and didn't like it, then definitely don't bother with the others (although Think Like A Freak has some more practical applications than the other books).
on July 7, 2016
I have read all of the Freakonomics books. They are well written and hold my interest. Best is the combination between entertaining and learning. I feel most recommended books on a reading list, other than the classics, are a struggle to get to the end or you feel the author was paid by the word. On the other hand,I am not looking to read a manual or how to just to make myself suffer so my time is not wasted. These authors mix seemingly random topics and answer questions I did not know I had. My time was never wasted and I thank them for that.
TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICEon May 5, 2015
Levitt and Dubner have become a part of my life: they appear on public radio in my area and their blog and their other books have wonderful, offbeat ideas that fascinate me.
And fairness to the negative Reviews here, every entry in this book is freely available on Levitt and Dubner's blog. Their rationale resonates with me. Dubner was driving in Maine when he came upon a gigantic Poland Spring bottling plant. "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."
Levitt and Dubner often wondered why they kept writing their blog -- now starting its eleventh year. They decided it was because "our readers liked reading the blog, and we loved our readers." From time to time, folks would suggest they turn the blog into a book. "This struck us as a colossally dumb idea ..." until Dubner came across that gigantic Poland Spring bottling plant.
"Suddenly a book of blog post didn't seem so dumb. So in the tradition of Poland Spring, Evian and other hydro-geniuses, we've decided to bottle something that was freely available and charge you money for it. To be fair, we did go to the trouble of reading through the whole blog and picking out the best material."
So there you have it: read this material for free on their blog -- or buy the book and carry it with you on your smart phone, and dip into the book whenever you have a spare minute. [Meanwhile, I carry a few empty Poland Spring bottles in my car and fill them up with delicious New York City water whenever my supply gets low.]
Here's an example of how these fellows help me: I am very interested as a codger in raising money for not for profits, currently the Companion Animal Advocates (pet food for shut ins) and the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference (building, maintaining, helping people use trails). Awhile back they ran a fascinating story based on research results: attractive women raise twice as much money for charity from both attractive and unattractive men -- more than unattractive women, or attractive men, or unattractive men. Otherwise attractiveness, or lack thereof, doesn't matter. So when we are raising money at a tabling event, for example, my attractive woman partner talks to the men, and I take everybody else. It works; if we talk to roughly the same number of people, my partner always raises more money than I do by quite a bit!
Another example, just read this morning:
One of the rants involves going to the dentist, in this case, a Doctor Reiss.
" I was asking Dr. Reiss about the causes of tooth decay -- genetics vs. diet, etc. etc. -- when he begin explaining why toothpaste is such a bogus product. Any claims that tooth paste makes about preventing decay, whitening teeth, etc. are totally fallacious, Dr. Reiss told me, because the FDA can't and won't allow the ingredients necessary to perform those chores in an over-the-counter product children can easily get hold of. That why he recommends an antibacterial product like , a fairly foul tasting but apparently effective means of killing the bacteria that cause decay. ...
"He told me that tooth decay ... is getting worse and worse ... particularly for people in middle age and above. The reason? An increased reliance on medications for heart disease, high cholesterol, depression, etc. Many of these medications, Dr. Reiss explained, produce dry mouth ... because saliva kills bacteria in the mouth, a lack of it means increased tooth decay."
The lesson is clear: take my statins regularly, and swish about this foul tasting oral cleanser.
Kill those lousy little bacteria with every swish!
***
Another example, the title story:
"Here’s a story about a guy who robbed six banks in New Jersey but only on Thursdays. “No reason was given for choosing that particular day,” notes the A.P. article. Perhaps he knew something about how the banks did business; perhaps his astrologist told him Thursdays were lucky; perhaps it simply fit his schedule.
"In any case, it reminded me of a story I once heard about an Iowa bank employee named Bernice Geiger, who was arrested in 1961 for embezzling more than $2 million over the course of many years. The bank happened to be owned by her father. Bernice was reportedly very generous, giving lots of the money away. Upon her arrest, the bank went bust. Sent to prison, she was paroled five years later, and moved back in with her parents, who apparently were forgiving types.
Geiger was reportedly exhausted by the time she was arrested. Why? Because she never took vacations. This turned out to be a key component in her crime. As the story goes — this was told to me by a retired Sioux City cop, though I’ve never been able to confirm it — the reason she never took vacations was that she was keeping two sets of books and couldn’t risk a fill-in employee discovering her embezzlement. The most interesting part, according to the cop, is that after prison Geiger went to work for a banking oversight agency to help stop embezzlement. Her biggest contribution: looking for employees who failed to take vacation. This simple metric turned out to have strong predictive power in stopping embezzlement.
I wish I had more details, and/or I wish I knew how true this story may be. But the point is that, like cheating schoolteachers or colluding sumo wrestlers, the people who steal money from banks sometimes leave telltale patterns — whether it’s a lack of vacation or a string of Thursdays — that point the finger right at them."
***
I've been eagerly awaiting this book, and although I'm not into robbing banks, I am sure that when I find something useful in the 130 other stories, I'll try it out -- and if it really works, amend this review to share my success.
Robert C. Ross
May 2015
And fairness to the negative Reviews here, every entry in this book is freely available on Levitt and Dubner's blog. Their rationale resonates with me. Dubner was driving in Maine when he came upon a gigantic Poland Spring bottling plant. "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."
Levitt and Dubner often wondered why they kept writing their blog -- now starting its eleventh year. They decided it was because "our readers liked reading the blog, and we loved our readers." From time to time, folks would suggest they turn the blog into a book. "This struck us as a colossally dumb idea ..." until Dubner came across that gigantic Poland Spring bottling plant.
"Suddenly a book of blog post didn't seem so dumb. So in the tradition of Poland Spring, Evian and other hydro-geniuses, we've decided to bottle something that was freely available and charge you money for it. To be fair, we did go to the trouble of reading through the whole blog and picking out the best material."
So there you have it: read this material for free on their blog -- or buy the book and carry it with you on your smart phone, and dip into the book whenever you have a spare minute. [Meanwhile, I carry a few empty Poland Spring bottles in my car and fill them up with delicious New York City water whenever my supply gets low.]
Here's an example of how these fellows help me: I am very interested as a codger in raising money for not for profits, currently the Companion Animal Advocates (pet food for shut ins) and the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference (building, maintaining, helping people use trails). Awhile back they ran a fascinating story based on research results: attractive women raise twice as much money for charity from both attractive and unattractive men -- more than unattractive women, or attractive men, or unattractive men. Otherwise attractiveness, or lack thereof, doesn't matter. So when we are raising money at a tabling event, for example, my attractive woman partner talks to the men, and I take everybody else. It works; if we talk to roughly the same number of people, my partner always raises more money than I do by quite a bit!
Another example, just read this morning:
One of the rants involves going to the dentist, in this case, a Doctor Reiss.
" I was asking Dr. Reiss about the causes of tooth decay -- genetics vs. diet, etc. etc. -- when he begin explaining why toothpaste is such a bogus product. Any claims that tooth paste makes about preventing decay, whitening teeth, etc. are totally fallacious, Dr. Reiss told me, because the FDA can't and won't allow the ingredients necessary to perform those chores in an over-the-counter product children can easily get hold of. That why he recommends an antibacterial product like , a fairly foul tasting but apparently effective means of killing the bacteria that cause decay. ...
"He told me that tooth decay ... is getting worse and worse ... particularly for people in middle age and above. The reason? An increased reliance on medications for heart disease, high cholesterol, depression, etc. Many of these medications, Dr. Reiss explained, produce dry mouth ... because saliva kills bacteria in the mouth, a lack of it means increased tooth decay."
The lesson is clear: take my statins regularly, and swish about this foul tasting oral cleanser.
Kill those lousy little bacteria with every swish!
***
Another example, the title story:
"Here’s a story about a guy who robbed six banks in New Jersey but only on Thursdays. “No reason was given for choosing that particular day,” notes the A.P. article. Perhaps he knew something about how the banks did business; perhaps his astrologist told him Thursdays were lucky; perhaps it simply fit his schedule.
"In any case, it reminded me of a story I once heard about an Iowa bank employee named Bernice Geiger, who was arrested in 1961 for embezzling more than $2 million over the course of many years. The bank happened to be owned by her father. Bernice was reportedly very generous, giving lots of the money away. Upon her arrest, the bank went bust. Sent to prison, she was paroled five years later, and moved back in with her parents, who apparently were forgiving types.
Geiger was reportedly exhausted by the time she was arrested. Why? Because she never took vacations. This turned out to be a key component in her crime. As the story goes — this was told to me by a retired Sioux City cop, though I’ve never been able to confirm it — the reason she never took vacations was that she was keeping two sets of books and couldn’t risk a fill-in employee discovering her embezzlement. The most interesting part, according to the cop, is that after prison Geiger went to work for a banking oversight agency to help stop embezzlement. Her biggest contribution: looking for employees who failed to take vacation. This simple metric turned out to have strong predictive power in stopping embezzlement.
I wish I had more details, and/or I wish I knew how true this story may be. But the point is that, like cheating schoolteachers or colluding sumo wrestlers, the people who steal money from banks sometimes leave telltale patterns — whether it’s a lack of vacation or a string of Thursdays — that point the finger right at them."
***
I've been eagerly awaiting this book, and although I'm not into robbing banks, I am sure that when I find something useful in the 130 other stories, I'll try it out -- and if it really works, amend this review to share my success.
Robert C. Ross
May 2015
on March 8, 2017
I couldn't put it down. It is similar to freakanomics but all different stories. Good quick read held my interest.
on November 6, 2016
Got this on sale for $2 on Kindle, which is really what it should cost since this was just a compilation of blog posts that are already available. As always, Levitt & Dubner are witty and adventurous throughout the journey, and I couldn't ask for a better flight companion.
If you've read at least one of the 3 prior Freakonomics books an enjoyed it, this would be in the same groove.
If you've read at least one of the 3 prior Freakonomics books an enjoyed it, this would be in the same groove.
on March 5, 2017
I enjoyed this book a lot, Levitt's sister struggle with cancer was one of the best parts of the book IMHO, I could not imagine a touching part like this on a book like this.... I am looking forward to read the rest of the Freakonomics books!
on November 5, 2016
Having read their books Freakonomics and Think like a Freak, I expected to enjoy this collection of essays. I did. This book is especially fun to read while traveling as the essays can be enjoyed in short reading bursts in between the usual travel distractions. Wonderful.
on November 9, 2015
As always, these guys are terrific writers and brilliant at explaining complicated economics in entertaining and "outside of the box" ways of perceiving our world.
