Freakonomics by Levitt and Dunber

You could easily dismiss Freakonomics as just another interesting but unimportant or worse yet unremarkable book filled with pop-economic observations by a media-popular economist and writer with little more to offer than a pedigreed PhD and an irresistible writer's voice.

A quick review of the table of contents reveals a treatment of banal subjects ranging from cheating teachers and Sumo wrestlers to mama's boy drug dealers and baby names.

"Light-weight stuff this is", you might be thinking; not worth serious consideration.

You could easily dismiss this work as little more than pool-side fare but you would be wrong.

The foundation of Freakonomics' value lies in how it demonstrates five fundamental ideas.

-         Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.

-         Conventional Wisdom is often wrong.

-         Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle causes.

-         Experts use their informational advantage to serve their own advantage.

-         Knowing what to measures and how to measure it makes a complicated world less so.

By applying the tools of Economics to some-what pointless questions, Freakonomics provides a new way of viewing the world.  It is important because it demonstrates a different way to think about questions that are not easy to answer.

In today's world, where the easy answers are commodity answers, available to anyone, being able to think about and answer difficult questions in a new way is the difference between success and failure.  Freakonomics is important because it provides a glimpse into this reality.  Besides, it is a wonderful read from a set of intelligent writers with an irresistible voice.