Book review - Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics

I’m bundling up two reviews in a single post
Reason #1: I read the books successively without a gap
Reason #2: One of these books doesn’t deserve a separate post
Reason #3: I’m also a teensy-weensy bit lazy (this had the most insignificant impact on the decision, really :D)

Freakonomics is the result of an economist asking questions (and answering them) that typical economists never ask. For example: ‘What do Sumo wrestlers and school teachers have in common?’ (DO NOT try to guess!) Steven Levitt answers such questions by digging into huge amounts of data, analyzing them from a never-seen-before perspective and with Stephen Dubner, presents it on a platter through this book – all we have to do is digest it…if we are ready to digest and believe the facts.

Despite the name, Freakonomics is neither freaky (maybe it is in the mind of a typical economist) nor ‘technically economics’; atleast not the way we know economics to be. The book was fun to read and the authors added a good dosage of humor (Don’t expect to go LOL-ing for every page though, it isn’t a joke book right? Besides what are presented here are solid facts)

I felt that no other book can explain human psychology and nature so perfectly…

Economics or for that matter anything boils down to one simple statement – People respond to incentives…is there any other sentence that explains human nature so correctly?

The book gives a clear explanation of many weird yet commonplace things with lots of data to back it, that you can’t help but believe. While reading the book, at the end of some revelations, I was unable to believe I believed what was stated! (I'm even now in a state of unable to believe that I believe – some intensive googling needed to make it settle in my head)

Hmm…hence I had a good incentive to read Superfreakonomics, immediately after.

To tell the truth, Superfreakonomics is nothing like its title, it should’ve probably been named 'Subfreakonomics' – for that’s what the book is. The book doesn’t live up to its expectations as the sequel of Freakonomics; the book reveals too little a number of facts and goes on and on and on about them till you feel, ‘Enough! What’s the next startling fact?’ Maybe the authors should’ve done more research and garnered enough number of facts before going for the second book.

The only topic I liked in Superfreakonomics is its eye-opener on Global warming – I just read this today, so I still didn’t digest it (The next stage would be unable to believe…blah blah)

So are these books recommended?

Freakonomics – yep!
Superfreakonomics – not really

In case you’re thinking that these books are too technical/ complex…

…I found these books to be much much less (actually nowhere near) complicated than The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari...I still have to come out of that trauma, only time can heal certain wounds! :(

Save Our Tigers?

The words ‘Save Our Tigers…only 1411 left’ stare out at you, accompanied by a picture of a cute little tiger that makes you go ‘Awww….sooo cute!’. In how many places have we seen these hoardings? – Countless probably.

I’ve received many emails too, asking me to ‘pledge my support’. All I had to do was register and voila – I was supporting tigers! A number of ‘celebrities’ (quotes coz I hate that word, many people don’t deserve to be in that category) ‘pledged’ their support. A crop of websites popped up too, to campaign for the issue.

But, will this all help?

I happened to visit the 'Save Our Tigers' website and was aghast at what I saw in the ‘Be Informed’ link. The last update was on August 21, 2009 (!) and the link to the file read ‘66 tigers dead in 8 months’. Well, that is how informed we are on the issue!

It has been almost 9 months since the campaign started…hasn’t there been ANY change in the number of tigers since then? No births or deaths??? Even the brand new banners or websites carry the same message ‘Save our tigers…only 1411 left’ specific to the units place, is it even accurate data?

Hundreds of people have ‘pledged their support’, so what? Is it of any use? What are the activities taken up to ensure that the tiger population thrives? What has been done to save our tigers in the past 8 months???

And the most important question I would like to ask…did everyone suddenly realize the dwindling tiger population only now? I don’t think the number of tigers plummeted from tens of thousands to ‘1411’ in a few days! As far as I know I think the dwindling tiger population has been a problem from not less than 10 years. What were all these people doing all these days? What are they doing now???

I think it’s high time to stop the hype and take action; just ‘pledging support’ won’t help in any way.

Corrupt officials who partake in poaching should be removed…but I know that this idea is too far-fetched (the whole topic of corruption is like a huge dirt pit, too deep and wide to fathom and there’s no end to it).

Maybe from now on each ‘celebrity’ and each organization should adopt a tiger since its birth, sponsor it and be responsible for it and its safety completely - Just like how villages are adopted for development. But who wants responsibility? Everyone wants to just ‘pledge their support’ (I’m beginning to hate this phrase) throw in some money (God knows if this really reaches the right place) and announce to the world that they’ve, well, ‘pledged….’

Let’s just hope that these pledges translate to actions somehow and do save these magnificent creatures from disappearing from our country….and planet.

Book Review: A Suitable Boy

Can’t say how much my life changed due to ‘A Suitable Boy’ – In terms of the time spent on it or mustering up the determination to complete the novel

It all started when I went to Crossword a year ago just to check out its sale. I chanced upon this book and bought just coz it was quite cheap for such a big book and the author was well known :P

It was after getting the book home that I realized that what I had in my hands was one of the longest novels (1349 pages) ever written in English Literature!...and I patted myself on the back for that :D

Of course, I didn’t expect myself to read it right away…the pile of books I had to read for my impending project work/ exam had already turned into a mini mountain.

So…finally after all exams, when I knew I had all the time in the world (I did not know till when though) I started reading THE BOOK. After reading about 400 pages, I decided to give a gap for a few days, coz the book’s not a thriller and I wasn’t dying to know what happens next. This gap of a few days soon turned into a gap of a few months…

…until I began reading it again in December 2009.

Through immense determination and giving credit to the book – through the interest that slowly crept on me as I turned the pages, I finally completed reading the novel last Sunday (28th March) !!! (Hurray!)

Btw, while reading this book, I also simultaneously read ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’, ‘One Night at the Call Center’, ‘You Belong To Me’, ‘Blink’ and ‘Freakonomics’ (halfway through).

The pace of the narration is smooth, slow and the book requires patience to read. You can’t just expect something miraculous or incredible or thrilling to happen in a couple of hundred pages. Once you get started, the interest builds-up, but slowly.

The story basically revolves around four families – The Mehras, the Kapoors, the Chatterjis and the Khans. The main story is about how Mrs. Mehra looks for ‘A Suitable Boy’ for her daughter Lata.

There are quite a large number of main protagonists in this story (there are four family trees in the first couple of pages of the book for easy reference) and an even larger number of other ‘side’ characters. Given this, you will never once get confused who is who, related to whom and how…

As I kept reading the novel, I felt the characters come alive, so real, so natural, so very like each one of us…it later becomes quite hard to imagine that those people do not exist, that they are just figments of a person’s imagination.

To tell the truth, somewhere towards the end of the book, I expected something dramatic or a sudden turn of events to take place in one scenario and something totally unexpected happened in another scenario… it’s quite a dumb way of putting it, but it’s hard to tell the story without telling it!!!

In this story, there are no heroes, no marvels, just ordinary people, living ordinary lives, which turn extraordinary under certain circumstances and the lives become temporarily turbulent, but then just as any storm should settle, so do these lives; and then life goes on.

At the end it left me with this feeling…

...that I traveled all alone to an entirely different place and was introduced to these characters such that I knew all of them, but they did not know who I am, I could see them, but they couldn’t see me; something like a spirit…

…and that I watched all what was going on in their lives for a brief period of time, smiled when they were happy and felt their pain, before the author beckoned the spirit and told that it was time to leave.