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Book Review: Witty collection for fans of 'Freakonomics'
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Basically, If you loved Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, or any of Messrs. Levitt and Dubner’s other books uniting the sublime with the ridiculous, then When to Rob a Bank should be your next stop. (Shutterstock/*)
C
an you believe it’s been ten years since Freakonomics first hit the bookstands? This enfant terrible of economic insight quickly blazed a trail for a slew of similarly eye-opening titles that dared to challenge and confront age-old social woes with a frighteningly refreshing academic perspective.
And then there was the blog. And then the podcast. But back to the blog—Freakonomics.com—an 8,000 post-and-counting continuation of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s musings on everything from the best way to cut gun deaths to why it might be time for a sex tax.
So to commemorate this vast and varied decade of achievements, some of the blog’s finest specimens have been carefully curated in this colorful collection, and presented as a single tome. And it ain’t half good.
As the title suggests, a fair few posts didn’t make the cut, but the vignettes included here have been cherry picked and loosely grouped into themes, such as sports, sex, money and the environment. In terms of style, the writing is more casual and hard edged than we’ve come to expect from earlier books. This is reflected in typically off-kilter questions such as: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken?
(Read also: Book Review: A soul search for modern spirituality)
Some of the stories are intensely personal as well, such as Levitt’s account of his sister’s death from cancer, and his father’s observations on healthcare in America. Other entries can get a little esoteric—both Levitt and Dubner’s personal passions get considerable page-time—but for Steve(s) fans, these segues are probably just as interesting as the bigger topics.
Described as a behind-the-scenes look at the minds behind Freakonomics, although When to Rob a Bank is (as expected) intelligent, witty, kooky and counter intuitive, it perhaps lacks the exploratory nature of earlier books (these are blog entries after all). That said, there are flashes of true genius that will surely appeal to longstanding Freakonomics fans and turn the heads of more casual observers.
Basically, If you loved Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, or any of Messrs. Levitt and Dubner’s other books uniting the sublime with the ridiculous, then When to Rob a Bank should be your next stop.
Hey, 7 million book sales and 150 million podcast downloads can’t be wrong, can they? If they can, there are only two men called Steven/Stephen in the world who can reliably resolve this quandary. The data never lies. (kes)
Click here to read the book.
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Title: When to Rob a Bank
Author: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Published: 2015
Publisher: William Morrow
Reviewed by: Dave Barton
