Freakonomics

This morning on the T ride to work I finished reading a pretty entertaining book--Freakonomics, by two guys named Levitt and Dubner, one an economist and one a journalist. I've been telling everyone I meet about this book. Heena and Alexander got an earful last night. So have my coworkers, many of whom have already read the book. Paul doesn't even need to read it because I think I spoiled the whole thing for him. Has anyone else read it? I recommend it. So it's basically a book with no unifying theme, about interesting social and economic topics from drug dealing to parenting. Of course, an economist (or a journalist, for that matter) often finds in the data what he wants to find, to come to the conclusion he always intended to... so I don't take all (or any) of his findings as fact, but the stuff is truly interesting and entertaining, and makes you think about things you never did before. Among my favorite topics were why crack dealers still live with their mothers if they're so rich, what makes the perfect parent, and baby-naming patterns. A must-read!