Audiobook Review: SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

by Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt
Narrator: Stephen J. Dubner
Series: Freakonomics #2
Published: October 20, 2009
Genres: Audiobook, Non-fiction
Format: Audiobook (7 hrs and 28 mins)
Source: Library

SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:

How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
How much good do car seats do?
What's the best way to catch a terrorist?
Did TV cause a rise in crime?
What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?
Can eating kangaroo save the planet?

Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming.  By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is – good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.

I’ve recently gotten hooked on the Freakonomics podcast so I decided to borrow Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s latest book from the library.  The full title is SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance which would not fit in my little title box for this post.

My favorite thing about this book, that also shows up every week in the podcast, is how they challenge popular beliefs about current issues by using statistics to come to different conclusions than everyone else.  It stretches my brain and I learn some new things at the same time.  Like learning about the whaling industry.  I didn’t know that oil (the fossil kind) replaced the whaling industry.  At the time whaling could have been considered too big to fail since whale oil was used to light houses.  A theory that really stretched my brain was the after-affects of September 11 in increased policing of terrorism reduced policing in other areas like the financial sector.  I had never linked the two before, but it does make a lot of sense.

That’s not to say I agree with all the ideas in the book.  I thought the hose idea to fix global warming was stupid but I do appreciate the focus on creative, simple, and unconventional solutions to current problems.

Another interesting tidbit I learned from this book was how to get rid of illegal markets.  If you go after suppliers of illegal things (like we do right now with drugs) then it creates more demand and the market sticks around. If you go after the demand the market will shrink.  It seems pretty straight forward and obvious but there are a few reasons that we don’t do that.  As a society it’s easier to villianize drug dealers than the poor little guy who wanted a fix.  But the biggest reason, I think, that we don’t go after the demand is because there is so much more of it.  The police can barely keep up with getting rid of suppliers.

Narrator Review: ★★★★

Stephen Dubner also narrates the Freakonomics podcast so I was used to hearing his voice.  This book felt like a really long podcast and it was enjoyable for me to listen to.  Stephen reads at a good pace and does a good job of adding interest to the book.  I find his way of narrating conversational and very easy to listen to.

Overall, it’s an interesting and different look at current issues that I learned a little from and was entertained by as well.

Content Rating: High, for one use of the f-word and a discussion in the first chapter of the “business” of prostitution.  It wasn’t graphic but it was still a little too much info for me.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• Audiobook Challenge 2014