I liked it.

I was a few years behind, I know. I finished Freakonomics this week. On Monday, actually {see post below on being busy}. I really liked it. It was fresh, it was fun, it was quick. Definitely interesting. Anyone who hasn't read the chapter about names should skim through it quickly in a bookstore. I read a New York Times review that I thought put it best, so I’ll let it do the talking.

''Freakonomics,'' written with the help of the journalist Stephen J. Dubner, is an odd book. For one thing, it proudly boasts that it has no unifying theme. For another, each chapter begins with a quotation from the under-author (Dubner) telling us how great the over-author (Levitt) is: a ''master of the simple, clever solution,'' a ''noetic butterfly'' (!), ''genial, low-key and unflappable,'' etc. Yet a little self-indulgence can be tolerated in a book as instructive and entertaining as this one…

Economists can seem a little arrogant at times. They have a set of techniques and habits of thought that they regard as more ''rigorous'' than those of other social scientists. When they are successful -- one thinks of Amartya Sen's important work on the causes of famines, or Gary Becker's theory of marriage and rational behavior -- the result gets called economics. It might appear presumptuous of Steven Levitt to see himself as an all-purpose intellectual detective, fit to take on whatever puzzle of human behavior grabs his fancy. But on the evidence of ''Freakonomics,'' the presumption is earned.”