When to Rob a Bank: ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants
Freakonomics • Book 4
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Narrated by Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt, Erik Bergmann, Therese Plummer
Why You'll Love This
The Freakonomics guys turned a decade of blog rants into an audiobook — and it's better than it has any right to be.
- Great if you want: bite-sized economic contrarianism without committing to a thesis
- Listening experience: breezy and episodic — dip in anywhere, no momentum required
- Narration: Levitt and Dubner reading their own material gives it a podcast intimacy
- Skip if: you want sustained arguments rather than scattered provocations
About This Book
Over a decade of blog posts on Freakonomics.com, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner have asked questions that their more formal books didn't quite have room for: when is the best time to rob a bank (never; the returns are terrible), whether flight attendants should be tipped, what KFC's repeated chicken shortages reveal about corporate logistics, and how to think about a sex tax. The collection is more personal and digressive than the books, catching the authors in the middle of arguments rather than at their conclusions.
Stephen Dubner narrates with the same comfortable authority he brings to the main Freakonomics audiobooks, and Steven Levitt and additional voices contribute to the collection's sense of genuine multiplicity. The variety of topics and the shorter format of each piece make this an excellent audio experience for commuters or anyone who prefers to read in short bursts. This Goodreads Choice Award winner for Nonfiction demonstrates that Levitt and Dubner's off-the-cuff thinking is as entertaining as their formal work.
