DIANA LIU
Gargoyle senior editor
Posted Monday, Oct. 26, 2009

I CONFESS — I'm guilty!

Economist Steven Levitt and his journalist-collaborator Stephen Dubner's "SuperFreakonomics" has been out for six entire days now, and I still haven't gotten my hands on a copy.

It's an inexcusable shame for a fervent "Freakonomics" adorer and really just my own loss.

"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything," in case you happen to be woefully unaware of this lovely piece, is a medium-length infusion of quirky, "un-normal" microeconomics topics and more-than-merely-readable nonfiction writing.

The authors, one from the University of Chicago and the other of The New York Times, not only share the nearly-same first name but also the privilege of being my first inductors to the intriguing economics of daily life, behaviors, and incentives.

They also have a sense of humor. It's currently residing on their blog, which goes completely beyond the 2005 publication and which I have followed not always diligently but very happily on Google Reader. (This goes to show that I don't just read food blogs.)

The new material there had carried me through even when I had no hope of a Part Two (for instance, German courts have banned surnames that have been hyphenated more than two times), though I am still patiently awaiting my free signed bookplate I requested around two years ago.

Let's take a glimpse at the chapter titles of Part One. The content itself draws connections with piles of data and acres of calculations from which we are (mercifully? unfortunately? mostly?) spared.

Chapter One: What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? The answer: cheating, but the path to recognizing cheating exists, and weeding out the patterns of how cheaters think (as they fill out their students' standardized testing bubbles to elevate their bonuses or prepare to throw a match in order to gain favors/rise in the ranks) is far more fascinating.

Chapter Two: How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents? The answer: information abuse.

This is followed handily by Chapter Three: Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? The controversial Chapter Four: Where have all the criminals gone? (The answer: abortion.) Five: What makes a perfect parent? And Six: Would a Roshanda by any other name smell as sweet?

You get more out of "Freakonomics" than just the answers to the above, as worthwhile and engaging as those might be. The book gives you gems:

• Watch out when your real-estate agent uses the words "fantastic," "spacious," "charming," "great neighborhood," or heaven forbid, "!" to describe your property or any other. It means there's nothing better to say.
• It doesn't matter, test-score wise, if a child's parents reads to him frequently or not, though it does help to merely have books in the house.
• Someone has named their twins OrangeJello (a-RON-zhello) and LemonJello (le-MON-zhello). Confirmed.

Part One had on its cover a green apple with a slice cut out to reveal that the inside is, in fact, an orange. On the cover of Part Two, the apple/orange explodes.

I can't wait.