And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants

Most of the comments expressing disappointment here have to do with content. I bought the CD audio version and I am actually okay with the content. It's good not great, but certainly sufficient to hold my interest.

My disappointment relates to the poor enunciation of one of the reader / authors, Professor Steven D. Levitt. He is obviously an intelligent, insightful man but the CD suffers because he does not enunciate well. His speaking volume declines drastically at the end of sentences and many words, sometimes the key words in a sentence, are not fully pronounced...a lack of speaking follow-through. So the portion of the book read by him is often unintelligible. The other author, Professor Dubner, is more than adequate as a reader and the two professional readers are excellent. Professor Levitt's issues with enunciation are correctable and until he gets some coaching he should leave the reading of his good and interesting economic thinking to others.

David Aronson

Honestly I would not recommend buying this book. If you do not already know, the book is a compilation of blogs from the authors' website. I do not feel like the blogs really go in depth on any one topic though. I thought this book would be similar to Malcom Gladwell's "What the Dog Saw", which was a compilation of his New York Times articles. That book had short excerpts but they were long enough to give you a thorough analysis into a topic. I enjoyed Freakanomics and I am a big behavioral economics reader. I so far of not like this book though.

Great book! Need an interesting conversation topic at a dinner? That's basically the whole book. That is if you don't mind throwing out an occasional awkward topic.
These guys really make you question life's abnormal quirks in a very smart way. Bought it after listening to their podcast.

Not as great as their full-fledged books, because there's no overarching theme, but rather just an assortment of blog posts. Some of them are boring, but most are interesting.

The biggest drawback was that I didn't learn as much from this book as the other one by Dubner and leveitt.

Note that all of these are available for free on the Freakanomics website. The only advantage the books offers is that they handpicked the ones they believe we're best, and they gave a short update on some of their posts.

Overall, worth the $2 for the kindle edition.

The writing was solid and insightful as always, but I was disappointed to find that it was just a collection of blog posts. I expected something that more closely resembled an actual book, and felt a little bit duped when all I got was a collection of blog posts.

I like everything by Levitt and Dubner, but this is my least favorite book by them. The blog format does not work so well in book form. The texts are very short, so I end up reading 5-10 in one go, and then I don't really remember any of it.

I really enjoyed the book, it had some really interesting blog posts. I gave it four out of five stars, because I would not have started the book with what was likely their most controversial blog posts -- regarding terrorists. It takes a lot to offend me, but I didn't want to read that chapter, and it almost turned me off to the book completely. I just skipped ahead after I realized what the blog post was about. I am not a fan of being controversial just to get a reaction, and it felt like the first chapter (or their original blog) was done to do just that.

I found this to be the most interesting volume since the original Freakonomics. I enjoyed the original Freakonomics book immensely as it was new and novel way of looking at the world. I didn't think the "Super" that followed was a worth successor. I felt that the next installment "Think Like a Freak" was the weakest. Though, perhaps this was mostly my fault as I had already heard most of the material in the book discussed in their excellent Freakonomics podcast. Maybe there should have been a disclaimer. However, this latest collection I found quite interesting and entertaining. It also has the benefit of being able to be digested in very short bursts as each (short) discussion more or less stands on its own. Includes some very heart-wrenching personal stories as well.

Perhaps even successful authors and gifted statisticians run out of steam. This tome is a case in point. Expecting something along the lines of Levitt's first book which I inhaled, my expectations were too high. I should have read excerpts before buying this one; it's resembles a mediocre burger – not a terrible meal but mildly disappointing nevertheless. Take a few minutes to read a few page excerpts before you buy; you perhaps might like it.