Freakonomics

If you like Malcolm McDowall, read this...and vice versa.

This is a really fun and interesting read, though I'm not sure I agree with many of the conclusions drawn from the data they have. It is well presented though and raises a lot of interesting questions. It is good as a thought experiment.

After hearing such glowing reviews, I was pretty disappointed in this book. I think if I hadn't had those preconceptions coming into it, I would have given in 2 stars. This book seems to me to confuse correlation and causality while claiming that it doesn't. It isn't so much a book about economics as about data analysis. Which would be fine except that I questioned the validity of every assertion made and felt that I needed to see the methods section of every study discussed. Furthermore, I felt that the book was oversimplified and redundant. I finished it purely out of stubbornness.