Books › Superfreakonomics
Superfreakonomics
416 pages
A playful, data-driven joyride that flips conventional wisdom on its head and reveals the hidden gears of human behavior.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting next to the most fascinating, slightly irreverent guest at a dinner party. It moves at a brisk, conversational clip, effortlessly translating dense statistical data into punchy, memorable anecdotes. The mood is relentlessly inquisitive and playful, inviting you to abandon your preconceived notions and look at the world through a lens of cold, hard, yet deeply amusing facts. You will find yourself constantly surprised by the counterintuitive connections drawn between seemingly unrelated phenomena. It is an intellectually stimulating joyride that delights in exposing the hidden incentives driving human behavior. Perfect for curious skeptics and pop-science enthusiasts, it leaves you with a lingering sense of wonder and a fresh, slightly cynical, but ultimately empowering perspective on everyday life.
- Mood
- intellectually stimulating
- playful
- surprising
- breezy
- Tone
- wry
- provocative
- conversational
- irreverent
- inquisitive
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- unintended consequences · hidden incentives · counterintuitive truths · human behavior · data-driven reality
- The writing
- Punchy, journalistic, and highly accessible, blending sharp statistical analysis with highly readable, anecdote-driven storytelling.
- The arc
- Begins with playful curiosity, builds through a series of surprising paradigm shifts, and leaves the reader feeling newly equipped to decode the world.
- Who it's for
- Armchair sociologists and curious skeptics who love having their assumptions challenged and collecting counterintuitive facts for their next dinner party.
Content notes
- discussions of sex work
- mentions of terrorism
- climate change anxiety
- medical emergencies
About the book
The Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies in thirty-five languages and changing the way we look at the world.Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with Superfreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.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?What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?Can eating kangaroo save the planet?Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else. 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. Freakonomics has been imitated many times over-but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.
Description from Open Library.
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