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blog posts levitt and dubner rob a bank thought provoking previous books collection of blog fun read blog entries steven levitt easy read like a freak bottled water read their blog looking forward think like read freakonomics original freakonomics well written freakonomics series buy this book
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JudithTop Contributor: Jigsaw Puzzles
5.0 out of 5 stars Freakonimics, Yes!
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2017
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This is a collection of the best blogs from the Freakonomics authors. I don't know why this book is getting such overall low reviews. It represents the same thinking outside the box attitude that we know and love from the two previous Freakonomics books. The writing has the same wry sense of humor, and is thought stimulating. Some of the blogs are funny stories, such as when one of them forgot he had his research papers about terrorism in his bag, and got held for questioning when he tried to go through airport security. Another favorite of mine was about being served rancid chicken in a high end restaurant, and even though the manager agreed that the chicken had turned, she refused to comp his meal. So, he published the story and the name of the restaurant in the NYT. Now, there was a lesson in customer service for her! I found this book to be very entertaining and mentally stimulating. I wonder if the people who gave it low ratings might have been unfamiliar with the Freakonomics way of thinking.
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L. M. M.
4.0 out of 5 stars if you are willing to sort through a decade of blogs to hand pick the best of them
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2015
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Ah, come on folks. The reviews are harsh, and the Steves are up front. You can read this for free on the blogs, if you are willing to sort through a decade of blogs to hand pick the best of them. If you find the blogs entertaining, and you don't mind reruns, then the book is great. I don't mind repeats. I haven't read every blog, or even most of them. There is also the comfort of having dead tree material in my hand for a change...
It's a good read, and you'll chuckle. What more do you want?
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Luke
4.0 out of 5 stars Instagram Review
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2019
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The final book in the freakonomics series is probably the least favourite of one of my favourite series. Consisting entirely of blog post entries from the Freakonomic.com website in the 10 years leading up until its publishing, it contains all the witticisms, curiosity and genius that have made the whole Freakonomics series such an easy-reading success. However, due to the nature of blogging, I did find this book to be a little stop-start and therefore less of a page turner that the rest of the series, and that did take away from the enjoyment and experience somewhat.

Check out more reviews like this one on Instagram @myhonestbookreview
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Bobby
4.0 out of 5 stars Good as bottled water
Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2015
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I'm a fan of the Freakonomics series. I bought this while on travel one day. It made for a light read sitting in the airport terminal (and probably any other light reading venues...bathroom....beach). The content is not as 'prolific' as the previous two versions - meaning you will have less insights into economic relationships and probably won't be able to impress others with as many interesting factoids. So, this one is not as great as the first two - but I give it 4 stars because it is still a entertaining read.

The authors state outright that the book is a summary of their online blog entries over the years. I'm a fan of the series, but didn't keep up with their online commentary - so all this was new to me. I regularly pay for bottled water - so I'm used to paying for free things. :)

I'd say, if you are a fan of the Freakonomics books (like the writing and the linking of incentives).
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Rob Galbraith
5.0 out of 5 stars If you're a fan of Freakonomics, buy this book!
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2016
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If you're already a fan of Freakonomics, this book is for you! It's a collection of the best blog posts from their blog over the last 10 years. It's very much in the style of all of the Freakonomics books, includes a few posts from guest writers, and all in all is yet another fascinating, thought provoking, and head spinning take on a wide variety of subjects. The book is even a bit broader than their previous books as they hit a wider range of topics.

If you haven't read any of the Freakonomics books, this is a suitable introduction but I would highly recommend starting with their first book, Freakonomics, as the best introduction to this economist/journalist duo that have engender a cult following among many. If you like that book, then I highly recommend their other previous books Superfreakonomics and Think Like a Freak, in that order. If you read Freakonomics and didn't like it, then definitely don't bother with the others (although Think Like A Freak has some more practical applications than the other books).
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Phillip Schultz
3.0 out of 5 stars Potpourri
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2017
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For a collection of blog posts, this isn't bad. It is the fourth book in the Freakonomics series. I can't compare this to the others because I haven't read them. I imagine this one is a bit more freeform. They loosely tie their selections together under some pretty broad categories.

These guys are clearly intelligent. Despite some quirky subjects, they do take themselves fairly seriously. It happened that I was reading this while taking an economics course, so it was fairly relevant for me. I think this made the book more enjoyable than I would have found it otherwise.

If I had to do it over again, I would want to read Freakonomics first, then maybe come to this book.
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Jane Garmon
5.0 out of 5 stars Super Reading
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2016
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I have read all of the Freakonomics books. They are well written and hold my interest. Best is the combination between entertaining and learning. I feel most recommended books on a reading list, other than the classics, are a struggle to get to the end or you feel the author was paid by the word. On the other hand,I am not looking to read a manual or how to just to make myself suffer so my time is not wasted. These authors mix seemingly random topics and answer questions I did not know I had. My time was never wasted and I thank them for that.
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Bart West
5.0 out of 5 stars I didn't rob a bank
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2017
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This did a terrible job of helping me gain the millions I thought I would from my hometown bank. However, it is a facinating read if you are interested in economics and statistics and how those things direct daily life!
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Mark Pack
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of bite-sized chunks of insight to enjoy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 18, 2015
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With their original Freakonomics book, Americans Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt were pioneers in popularising the use of an economics mindset - both behavioural and more traditional - to explain all sorts of parts of modern (usually American) life.

When to Rob a Bank is a lengthy collection of the best posts from the blog they launched at the same time. If you read too much of this book in one sitting, you quickly see the limitations of the blog format turned into a book: a hugely eclectic mix of topics, rarely explored in much depth and with many loose ends left flapping as the blog posts whirl past the eyes - especially as the absence of original blog posting dates means it is often unclear how much, if at all, an issue may have moved on since Dubner and Levitt wrote about it.

But treated as a book to dip into now and again (which is truer to the original blog format), it works very well and even if you've been a diligent reader of their books and listener to their excellent Freakonomics podcast, you'll find nearly all the material fresh to you. It's only if you've been a close reader of their blog - and can remember all the posts from years back - that you may be disappointed. Or, of course, if you've not been a close reader of their blog but are willing to go read the posts online for free instead of pay for a book - but with the book you not only get the different format, you also get the editorial selection process which has filtered all their many posts down to this 'best of' selection.

If the book is for you, there's much to learn here, not only about the eclectic range of topics but also - and perhaps most usefully - about how some of the basic concepts of economics can be used to help understand much of what goes on around us, providing a different and useful way to look at the world even without having to go into much maths or having much of a belief in all-conquering rational individuals, two of the most common bugbears about modern economics.
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GeordieReader
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing collection of excerpts from the authors' blog
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2016
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I browsed through this in an airport bookshop and was intrigued enough to download it when I got home. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd bought it to read on the plane. It's not that the snippets aren't interesting, it's just that they're too short to really involve the reader. It's very much a book for dipping into rather than sitting down to read. There is one excellent section which is Levitt's father's moving account of losing his daughter. If you can find that on the Internet, it's well worth reading, but the book as a whole seems to be cashing in on earlier success.
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Michael Galvin
2.0 out of 5 stars Bad cash-in
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 8, 2016
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As economists of some reknown, Levitt and Dubner don't appear to recognise the law of diminishing returns, as this lazy reprint of blog posts from their Freakonomics website basically proves. Each post is short and pointless, offering no insights but just asking a question. Some of the longer ones get into a bit more, but these are few and far between. This will be my last Freakonomics book and I'll be wary of the podcast too, to see if they're just phoning it in now that the guest lecture circuit is obviously working for them.
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E. A. Parr
2.0 out of 5 stars This book is a rather shallow collection of blogs from their website
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2015
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I've enjoyed the previous books tremendously giving them four or five stars. This one was a bit of a disappointment. It is merely a collection of blogs on their website and as such doesn't have the depth or detail that previous books do. Several of the blogs are interesting but many are not
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Travelbag3011
5.0 out of 5 stars Love this series of books
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 11, 2019
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Bought this as it was next in the series, and I really wanted to read the 'How to rob a bank!'. Greta read - took 2 days - I couldn't put it down!
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