When to Rob a Bank

...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants

By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt, Erik Bergmann, Therese Plummer

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made the Freakonomics guys an international sensation, with more than 7 million books sold in 40 languages, and 150 million downloads of their Freakonomics Radio podcast.

When Freakonomics was first published, the authors started a blog—and they’ve kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. In When to Rob a Bank, they ask a host of typically off-center questions: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken?

Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on the Freakonomics website. Many of them, they freely admit, were rubbish. But now they’ve gone through and picked the best of the best. You’ll discover what people lie about, and why; the best way to cut gun deaths; why it might be time for a sex tax; and, yes, when to rob a bank. (Short answer: never; the ROI is terrible.) You’ll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner’s own quirks and passions, from gambling and golf to backgammon and the abolition of the penny.

Please have Dubner read future books

The new narrators in this book are terrible. Their other books rock but this one is a stinker.

Thinking of random points

This book gives many random topics with details of interest on all sides that will appeal to many

Not as good as the other books

They didn't go into causality detail as much as in the past. Most topics left a lot to be desired.

worth it.

honestly I couldn't find anything that met the list I was trying to fill. however remembering Freakonomics I decided to give it a go.

Longer stories please?

Not as good as their previous books. The short stories left me wanting to know more. But then again, maybe that was their intention.

crowd-sourcing meets unorthodox economic ideas

Yet another fascinating publication by the Freakonomics pioneers, that engages the audience both in the content and in the presentation.

Blog posts but…

A single source for many of their more interesting blog posts. Worth a listen in my opinion.

bad narration

while I highly enjoyed Freakonomics, this one was much much weaker, especialy coz Levit is bad natrator. I strugled understang his pronanciations.

Fun to listen too!

Love these guys. I thought that putting this book in the format that they did, a bunch of blog posts ordered together, was really interesting. At first I didn't like it, but after a while I really enjoyed it. I liked that the topics were varied, you never get too used to listening to a certain topic, and every new segment is a surprise. It was great as well to be able to hear narration from both of the authors.

Great for picking up from where ever.

Like seriously if you flip to any part you'll learn something, for long time readers of the blog that something may be a it less but yeah-- they just repackaged their blog into a book. The short articles are tasty but leave one with the want of the deeper analysis of their other books. This one seems to be just for the money as if we're the brunt off some economics test. Is the incentive great enough to buy despite the meager returns . Id say this time yes-- but barely.