this book is free on the blog and podcast.

interesting book, but it's just articles from the blog and podcast. save your money and subscribe to the podcast.

53 persone l'hanno trovata utile

basically a list of their best blog posts

this audiobook is a bunch of blog posts. something you could get for free by going to their website. it's nice, however, to have them all in one place and with recent updates.
there are some interesting posts. unfortunately many of them are half baked ideas with a ton of holes that the authors dont bother in covering.
there's also a personal story about one of the author's sister, that while provides an emotive touch, it has almost no relation to the rest of the audiobook or the theme of the freakonomics franchise.

the post I disliked the most was the one about one of the authors getting a rancid chicken dish at a restaurant and despite his table getting free drinks he shamlessly attempts to coerce the manager to give him a discount on the whole check on top of the free drinks. he ends this vindictive post by naming the restaurant in question. thats not a respectable person does in my opinion.

overall this is a somewhat entertaining audiobook with a catchy title. unfortunately these two authors are running out of material and dont usually explore in depth the criticisms of their arguments.

22 persone l'hanno trovata utile

So anticipated this book; so disappointed.

What would have made When to Rob a Bank better?

I only got to chapter 5 before I returned it.

a. The biggest criticism of economics in general is that it ignores reality and assumes that people are logical rational beings. So when the authors suggested that the British Health Service just give $1,000 to each citizen on January 1 to use for the year's medical expenses...??!?!?. In a rational world this would work great. In real life there would be a lot of televisions bought on January 2 and a lot of politicians unwilling to let kids go without health care in November (and shelling out more money).

b. There was a long passage in which they handed the mic to an airline pilot who went on a scree about how pilots are not paid enough and the current system is far less safe than the old 3-man crew of the 20th century. No idea how this fits the book, but the current air traffic system flies several times more people with fewer accidents than the old one did, so perhaps the system is not really that bad. (NOTE: an entire chapter was also devoted to worrying about the wrong things in life---like maybe plane crashes??)

You get the idea. I am sad that this one didn't live up to the quality of their books.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Love Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics. This was a real let-down.

15 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Poor reader

I have loved everything I have read from Levit and Dubner. But Levit is such a poor reader that I had to continuously rewind to understand what he was saying. He mumbles and fades away at the end almost every sentence. I was very disappointed.

10 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Short little tidbits

This was more like just a collection of half-finished thoughts. It seemed more like a list of potential topics rather than being fully thought out and researched stories like previous books. It was just okay, I felt like it was a tease, didn't get down into the nitty gritty. A lot of the anecdotes were presented like "isn't it funny that this happens? Hm. And this happens too. And sometimes this happens. Hmm." But didn't actually explain why or delve into the topics more deeply.

10 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Just plain awful

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Much better material, obviously.

Would you ever listen to anything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner again?

Yes; but perhaps I'd wait until I'd read a lot of reviews.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment, of course. And relief that Audible has such a liberal return policy.

Any additional comments?

I've enjoyed their other books, and their radio show, but this just seemed like a collection of stuff from the cutting room floor. I guess I was forewarned: most of these ARE just rants.

10 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Nice follow-up book

If you liked Freakonomics then you should enjoy this one. Interesting from start to finish.

7 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Levitt should NOT NARRATE.

Please have Dubner read all future books.

I love Levitt’s brain, but when he talks it’s hard for me to concentrate on what he says. He does not enunciate his words. My mind wanders. I replayed two sentences twice and I still didn’t know what word he was saying. One was “business trips and (compy).” Other examples follow (the correct word is in parentheses): on the rose (roads), the other rection (direction), cloth dipa (diapers), capit (capital), strateg (strategy), camp (campaign), fitty (fitting), verters (virtues).

A second problem is Levitt pauses at odd times.

But I love Levitt’s thinking and ideas. These guys are a great team.

The content of this book can be read for free on the Freakonomics website. It consists of blog posts by the two authors and interactions with readers. I wanted something in audio form so I was happy to buy the book.

CONTENT:
Many interesting ideas. I enjoyed it.

One thing surprised me - regarding sports: There is a home field advantage in soccer games. But it is not the fans influencing the players, it’s the fans influencing the REFS. Apparently, Refs make calls to please the fans. And the closer the fans physically are to the refs, the more calls they make to please the fans. This was noticed in games where there was a running track between the field and the audience. The guys were studying soccer, but this likely applies to other sports.

There were several suggestions from former gang members and others about how to reduce gang membership. One gang leader said he loses members when they get jobs. Someone else suggested the cops take a gang member and drop him off alone late at night in the middle of a rival gang’s territory. He’ll get beat up.

Genre: nonfiction, economics.

6 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Please have Dubner read future books

The new narrators in this book are terrible. Their other books rock but this one is a stinker.

5 persone l'hanno trovata utile

A huge disappointment

Big fan of Freakonomics, but this one couldn't keep my interest for more than a few minutes. Disjointed, truncated, pointless.

3 persone l'hanno trovata utile