Review: Freakonomics – By Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

When looking for a light, fun read, economics isn’t a subject that springs to most people’s minds. A common misconception about economics is that it’s all just about finance and money, economics is actually about the distribution of goods and services and motivators that drive these trade values. Freakonomics takes this a step further and applies these tools to intriguing questions that mostly have nothing to do with finance. This is all wrapped up into a highly entertaining, fun to read package.

Freakonomics analyses different questions on subjects such as why drug dealers still live with their mothers and why crime suddenly dropped in 1990 when it was predicted to boom uncontrollably.  These are answered with some clever, unexpected conclusions and hidden mechanics. You’ll find yourself remembering and reciting many of the stories and insights from this book. I still remember the story of the economist who quit his job to sell bagels and how the Ku Klux clan was slowed without the police or violence. I’ll always keep in mind the insight on emotional and financial motivators backed up by the stories around them. I’ll probably use the information and thought patterns used in Freakonomics throughout my life. This book makes you start looking at everything from a different angle and reminds you that things aren’t always as straight forward as they seem.

The book is centred around six main subject questions, given in the chapter titles, there are plenty of sidelines and sub plots throughout. Everything is described in a very easy to understand way. For a book that has no main story or characters it makes extremely good, entertaining reading and seems to follow a logical natural progression despite the fact it many of the subjects are extremely varied.

From start to end Freakonomics is one of those books that just won’t let go of your attention. You’ll find yourself talking about it with your friends and colleagues, and thinking about things in the world around you in a new light. I’d highly recommend this for an entertaining and thought-provoking read. I hope the sequel (Super-Freakonomics) is just as good.

Review: Made to Stick - By Chip and Dan Heath (The book that caused me grief)

Browsing the local Waterstones bookshop I came across this in the sale section. It looked like a decent book so I picked it up and showed it to my girlfriend. She grabbed it off me without a second glance and plonked it on top of her pile of ancestry books, then bought it.... for herself! Now, after reading it, I'm trying to buy the darn book off her, a book which I picked up to buy in the first place! She says she wants to read it before selling, but I don't want to let her as she'll just put it amongst her scores of other ignored books and never read it. I won't see it again then.

The moral of the story is that Made to Stick is a damn good book. Anyone who ever has to get messages across, which is most people, will find this book both enjoying to read and useful. There's certainly things in there which I will apply regularly to things throughout my life.This book aims to help people not only communicate their own ideas better, but to be able to spot potential sticky ideas from other people. This is explained through examination of past failures and successes, how the brain works and how people work. The structure of the book focuses around a checklist for sticky information, "SUCCES"s (you'll have to read the book to find out what each letter stands for). Each chapter covers a different part of the SUCCESs checklist and there's plenty of interesting anecdotes, tests and examples to keep you entertained and educate. There's information from subjects such as psychology, sociology, economics, politics and so on, but it's less like reading an educational text and more like reading an enjoyable story. They clearly follow their own advice, everything said in this book is made to stick.

The back of the book contains a useful checklist of keywords and phrases to jog the memory of the information read in the previous chapters.... and it works well. That brings me back to the beginning of this review.... I need my own copy of this!

Very good book, would highly recommend!