Freakonomics

Book #15 was the I-thought-it-was-completely-over-hyped-but-it-turned-out-to-be-worth-every-bit-of-praise-it-got Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. What an awesome book. What it lacks in objectivity (Stephen Dubner must mention that Levitt is a "prodigy" and "not a typical economist" thirty times...) it more than makes up for in clarity, interesting subject matter, and entertaining writing.

(As an aside - we saw Chuck Klosterman speaking a few weeks ago and he said that there are only three things that matter in writing - is your topic interesting? Is your book entertaining? Is your writing clear? It's a really good way to think about writing and writers that you might enjoy. As Klosterman said, you find a lot of people with two, but you arely find writers with all three. His example of the best modern writer was Malcolm Gladwell, and I would whole-heartedly agree with that. Gladwell does an amazing job of picking interesting topics, writing about them in a clear way, and making them entertaining.)

The book is fairly controversial (though it presents all of its information in that "you-can't-doubt-it-it's-math" kind of writing style), but is such a page turner, and is so well written, it's probably worth any emotions it might flare in the process.

Cool topics that the Steph/vens cover

1. What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? (A hint, it's all about incentives)
2. How is the Klu-Klux-Klan like a group of real estate agents? (Another hint - this one is all about the power of information)
3. Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? (This one is just fascinating, especially if you know very little about drug culture)
4. Where have all the criminals gone? (This is the controversial one - watch out)
5. Which is more dangerous - a gun or a swimming pool? (just by the nature of the question, you can gues the right answer, but it was fun to read why nonetheless.)

Plus, I ask you, can you beat a book with its own T Shirt?