SuperFreakonomics

A while back I read Freakonomics (and reviewed it on here).  I really enjoyed the book, it offered an interesting perspective on several common issues.  Superfreakonomics continues in the same vein, exploring the hidden, economic side of the world.  In this book, to live up to its "super" title the authors expand the scope of the issues they talking about.  In the second book they deal with issues of more global significance like global warming and prostitution.  While these topics are certainly interesting, because they are more global in scope, they are more oft discussed, which means that the revelations that come from this book are much less fresh and exciting than those that come from this first book.

However, I am a big advocate of increasing public awareness of global warming and this books chapter on global warming gives a different take than the norm and is certainly more interesting for it.  This chapter provided some solutions that were alternatives to the ones that are often presented and I think they could make fixing the issue more palatable to many people (though perhaps less palatable to some).

In addition, there was some information about the Kitty Genovese case that is rarely discussed.  That was interesting because the case is discussed in basically every class that falls under jurisdiction of the Philosophy or Communication departments at most colleges and it does somewhat change the way that the case is looked at.  I wish that I had read that before some of the class discussions I have had.

This book, like many sequels, is not as good as the book before it.  Despite this, it was still a great read and I hope that Mr. Dubner and Mr. Levitt write a Super-Duper-Freakonomics or whatever they choose to call the sequel.

Overall, I would give this book an 87%.

Freakonomics

I realize that I am a bit behind the curve, reading Freakonomics now.  It was the big thing to be reading back when it came out, back in 2005.  There were a huge variety of spin offs and other tie ins but then it slowly faded from the public perception.  It is always been on my "to read" list and this summer my curiosity was particularly piqued by a comment about how the book discusses the relations of names to career success. This was the straw that broke the camels back and finally convinced me to read the book.

The book as a whole was extremely interesting.  It beats the reader over the head with the fact that it has no unifying theme and instead just explores several issues.  Basically, the two authors use economic concepts in ways that they are not typically used.  While I did take a couple of economic classes in college, I by no means consider myself to have a background in Economics and it was perfectly reasonable so prospective readers do not have to be worried about not understanding the books.

The variety of subjects covered makes each chapter of this book a separate adventure.  They each build off of each other but they can easily be read alone or with significant time in between them.  Despite what finally encouraged me to read the book, that was not what I found most interesting when I read the book.  The chapter that was the most fascinating was the one on the sudden drop in the crime rate in the 1990's.  They conclude that it was, in fact, the legalization of abortion.  This is certainly not a reason that is immediately obvious but they back it up with evidence very well.  The book is full of insights of similar, but less controversial, quality. 

This book was fun, insightful, and easy to read.  I would give this book a 89%.