The authors define “freakonomics” as the application of economic principles to non-financial questions. I started reading it on a flight from SFO to O’Hare and finished it as the plane was landing, so it’s certainly interesting and well written. Similarly to Blink, the only thing more intriguing than the topics are the conclusions. The theme is to be skeptical of conventional wisdom; it’s Moneyball for everything outside of baseball.

The Levitt/Dubner team now also has a blog of the same name to continue the discussion of these (often random) questions scientifically.