This is my first attempt at a book review, I have a feeling that as far as book reviews go this won’t be very good, but because  I have a narcissistic need to show off that I do in fact read books, I am writing it anyways. Please be warned my last attempt at a book review was during my junior  year of high school where  I shamelessly plagiarized the the character summaries  from the cliff notes ( it may have been spark notes, I can’t remember) of Moby Dick to prove the thesis that characters of Moby Dick were what made the story.

Super Freakonomics is the squeal to the Best selling Freakonomics by the economist Steven Levitt and that other guy who I can only assume is responsible for creating lighthearted narrative that made the first Freakonomicsthe easy to consume best seller that it was and is.

The Duo return to action in this version with a clear goal of being much more controversial. While the first outing of Freakonomics addresses issues including why drug dealers often live with there mothers , “which is more dangerous  a gun of a swimming pool” and ” what schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common”  and provides ” surprising answers to these question. The second book takes on the likes of  Global warming, prostitution and the spared of AIDS. Another major difference from the first book is that this version states from the beginning that its goals are to ” begin a dialog” which is certainly an interesting take from a couple of guys who claim to use the rigorous  analysis of “data” ( they really like that word ) to find truth. “Truth” rarely requires a dialog… just saying.

So how is the book?  well the narrative is still very enjoyable and lighthearted and I think any one over  12 or 13 years old will find this an easy read. The Analysis is interesting and as you would expect from a book called freakanomics the conclusions reached by the authors are certainly surprising or at least they will be to most people . The downside to this version of freakanomics lies in the authors far more liberal use of data and sources. In the first book Levitt relies heavily on statistics and well accepted studies to support his ideas and reach logical conclusions. In this version the authors rely  much more on individuals and single sources to make arguments as apposed to reaching logical conclusions which is a bit of a shame as this sort of hurts the original premise that a ruthlessly analytical approach  to the world can be used to find truth.

I would certainly recommend this book for it’s entertainment value  its well written and filled with great humor. Unfortunately unlike the original this book seems to use the sort of shock value tactics that fill the pages and channels of much of modern media which is sad because the book would have sold fine on the back of the original and it does some of the content a disservice as some of the arguments come off as political nonsense. when in fact many of them are sound.

I won’t ever recommend that any one buy anything but I enjoyed this book and its  a shame that it didn’t re-inforce the use of ruthless analysis and and anti politisisum that the world so very deeply needs