12 books in 12 months: January

Earlier this year, I wrote about my New Year’s resolutions which include some other resolutions that I wrote some time in October last year. (Yeah, I basically spend all year thinking about resolutions!) The idea is to read 12 books in 12 months, ie. one book a month. So here’s my review of the first book that I read…

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J.Dubner

Freakonomics

Freakonomics is a book about economics. Or sort of.

Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work, wheareas economics represents how it actually does work.

The book tackles various serious questions in bite-sized chunks and provides an easy-to-read format for those who might want to know stuff without understanding economics.

Personally, I hate numbers and statistics (unless they’re quotable in pretty infographics!) and yet this book appeals to me. Why? It’s interesting, it makes you think, it creates a sense of “huh really?!” and it explains to us the very nature of human beings.

Some interesting quotes from the book:

The conventional wisdom is often wrong.

Information is so powerful that the assumption of information, even if the information does not actually exist, can have a sobering effect.

Social scientists sometimes talk about the concept of “identity”. It is the idea that you have a particular vision of the kind of person you are, and you feel awful when you do things that are out of line with that vision.

People respond to incentives, although not necessarily in ways that are predictable or manifest. Therefore, one of the most powerful laws in the universe is the law of unintended consequences.

There are many more compelling stories and case studies that the authors use to argue their case (they are usually arguing that the known fact is in fact not the correct way of thinking or of finding out the source of the problem.)

There is also a film made out of this. I have yet to watch it, but interestingly enough, whilst I was telling everyone about this book, supposedly the film was on (Australian) TV in January. In case you’re interested, here’s a trailer:

I would recommend this book to anyone who’s looking for something fun and light-hearted to read. I don’t feel as if I got anything out of it in the way some books do, but I still find the stories and stats very interesting. The popularity of this book also makes it a good topic of conversation, so I’d recommend it for those who are interested in pop culture.