This book has been on my to-read list since it first came out. I might not have got around to it, except that my friend Chris gave me his copy after he finished it. I read the first few pages and I was hooked.

Freakonomics is a popularization of Steven Levitt's academic work, in which he applies economic tools to interesting societal issues. By finding clever ways to organize raw data, he manages to tease apart the factors that contribute to a situation and he's able to explain what's really going on.

The results have generated some valuable controversy. Levitt has a knack for asking questions that give rise to answers many people find distasteful or inconvenient. For example, he has shown that drops in crime rate are more attributable to a decrease in unwanted babies after Roe v. Wade than to better policing. The idea that an increased abortion rate leads to lower future crime rates is horrifying, but it appears to be true. He's also shown that parents have much less effect on their children than they'd like to believe.

There are many taboo subjects that need to be discussed and understood, and Freakonomics isn't a bad start.