Book Description
120 of the easiest New York Times puzzles in the popular Large-Print size For puzzlers who don't want to strain their minds-or their eyes. -120 great, solvable New York Times crossword puzzles -Features a generous easy-to-read two pages per puzzle.
Customer Reviews:
The New YorK Times Large-Print Easy Crossword Omnibus Vol. 1.......2007-09-08
Not easy. I bought it for my 92 yr. old mother. The clues were not appropriate for the answers.
NYT large print easy crossword puzzles.......2007-05-07
These puzzles are NOT easy. I gave this book to my elderly mother in a nursing home to help pass the time and she cannot even start most of the puzzles.
It was a waste of money to buy this book.
Very enjoyable!.......2007-04-20
My Dad loves crosswords but they're always so small.. with this he doesn't need to wear his glasses. I see him at this book a lot! The puzzles really aren't that easy; they aren't the mind numbing challenges you'll get on Saturday and Sunday... more like Monday - Thursday's puzzles in the NY Times. Respectable levels of difficulty to keep you challenged yet able to complete. I DO find some he hasn't finished yet. My Dad's a pretty smart guy (Cornell grad) and I want to keep him that way... a great gift!
These books are GREAT!!.......2005-11-30
I bought a BUNCH of these New York Times Crossword books for my mom including this one. She was very ardent about working puzzles and felt they helped her maintain her mental powers. I felt they did. I wondered if the print was TOO large but then it gave her a large work space as she savored the puzzles and kept returning to them. I also gave her a subscription to crosswords she could receive from them in the mail. During a visit, I was pleased to see she and a friend working them together. They are the perfect gift for an aging person who might be physically disabled but likes to stay on top of their game. Great stimulation!
Amazon.com
Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe
Book Description
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?
These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.
Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.
Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.
What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.
Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
Download Description
"
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime?
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But
Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.
Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author
Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In
Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.
What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.
Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But
Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
"
Customer Reviews:
Mind blowing .......2007-10-02
This book changed the way I think about economics, while being entertaining and fun. Highly recommended!
Dumbed Down Levitt.......2007-09-27
I saw Steven Levitt (the economist) on CSPAN Book-TV. He was intelligent, incisive & insightfull and presented his information clearly with a wry sense of humor. I very much anticipated reading this book. What a disappointment! Clearly the book was written by Dubner, not Levitt, and it's origins as a Sunday magazine profile are too apparent. The sharp intelligence and clear ideas are made fuzzy by Dubner's generic, puffy non-fiction writing techniques. This is not to say this book is without merit. Levitt's ideas manage to shine throught the murk of Dubner's writing. But if you want to get a clearer picutre of Levitt and his thinking, go to the C-SPAN Book-TV archives and watch the show with Steven Levitt discussing the book.
I hope that next time Levitt and/or his publisher will have the confidence to have him write a popular, non-academic book on his own and won't feel the need to hire a "professional" to translate his ideas to a popular audience. His ideas need simple clarity, not fancy dressing up.
Spray-Painted Fruit.......2007-09-25
"Freakonomics" has all the elements of great nonfiction. It approaches old subjects in new ways. It combines a "rogue" economist's out-of-the-box thinking with the concise work of a disciplined writer. A quick read, it also challenges Americans to think for themselves--now there's a real accomplishment!
Levitt and Dubner make some interesting points about our education system, medical and parental fears, and racial divides. They never claim to tie all these insights into a cohesive treatise, although they do meander back and forth over unifying themes of what motivates us as human beings and what causes us to buy into collective myths. For years, I've observed the lemming effect in our society, usually driven by the media, and by the average person's seeming inability to override knee-jerk fears with a small dollop of logic. Raising my own children, I heard the flip-flopping of the experts: "Babies should sleep on their backs...their bellies...their sides...in your bed...in their own bed..." ad nauseum.
"Freakonomics" has worthy goals. It reaches them on many levels. On the other hand, it is marketed toward those who already see through these societal deceits. It's not high-minded enough to satisfy those seeking true "rogue" economics, and it's not accessible enough for those nominative readers who might benefit from it the most. Also, on a number of occasions, it draws from a hodgepodge of statistics and extrapolates theories that, while very reasonable, are not proven here with any certainty. And yet we are expected to believe them, even while the same authors are telling us to stop believing such extrapolations from other "experts."
For a book that'll cause you to reconsider certain "established" norms" and to carry on lively discussions, "Freakonomics" is a wonderful coffee table addition. I was disappointed, though, in its overall lack of depth. Most of the subjects addressed are ones I, as a regular individual, have questioned on basic principles of logic in the first place. I didn't need a "rogue" economist for this, or a catchy title. I could've extracted the same tidbits from a decent magazine article by the same pair.
An apple is an apple is an orange. Yes, there are some nutrients in this tasty book, but the authors, like many grocers, have spray-painted the fruit to appear a bit more delectable than it actually is.
This book makes economics entertaining.......2007-09-23
Think you won't be entertained by a book about economics? Think again. Reduced to its essence, economics is about people's response to incentives. This book abounds with examples that you probably aren't accustomed to thinking of as economics. The author excels at analyzing mounds of data and extracting nuggets of wisdom from it. He even steps you through a couple of them, though once he's sure you've got the idea he sticks to giving you the pertinent information. After reading this book I became aware of how economics permeates human interactions.
Boring and pedantic to listen to on CD........2007-09-20
I couldn't make it past the second chapter even though the stories and ideas were engaging. As an audio product, the narrator repeats himself too many times and recaps and re-summarizes again and again. It's hard to listen to. If you're kind of slow, this CD may be just your speed. If you're sharp, you will be bored out of your skin. Perhaps an abridged version would be easier to sit through. It's too watered down and repetitive - at least as an audio version where you can't skim to avoid the redundancy.
Product Description
"In an age of too much wishful, faith-based conventional wisdom on the right and left, and too much intellectual endeavor squeezed into prefab ideological containers, Freakonomics is politically incorrect in the best, most essential way. Levitt and Dubner suss out all kinds fo surprising truths --sometimes important ones, sometimes merely fascinating ones --by means of a smart, deep, rigorous, open-minded consideration of facts, with a fearless disregard for whom they might be upsetting. This is bracing fun of the highest order" -Kurt Andersen
Customer Reviews:
A Must Read.......2007-04-15
Freakonomics challenges our presumptions and beliefs about things. The book covers incentives - the incentives to pick your child up from daycare to a teacher's incentive to cheat or a criminals incentive to commit crime. Various truths that we hold dear are challenged. Media and so called "experts" are examined and their theories are studied. Here are some of the questions answered and facts from the book:
- Children are more likely to drown in a swimming pool then be killed by a gun
- Where do the most popular girl and boy names come from?
- Why would a teacher cheat and change her students test scores?
- Why did crime decrease in the 1990s?
- Does a child's name have any effect on the child's well being or is a indicator of how sucessful they might be in the future?
This book is an enjoyable and shocking read.
Great reading front to back.......2007-02-20
Is your child safer in a home where there are guns, or in a home with a swimming pool in the back yard? Is the decrease in crime over the past two decades due to tougher laws, increased money for law enforcement, or something else...something that no one ever considered when Roe v. Wade was handed down? Is it true that the average drug dealer on the street corner actually makes less than minimum wage? And if so, why would anyone want to engage in such a 'career' when they have a 1-in-4 chance of being murdered or arrested in any given year? Do parenting styles make a difference in a child's outcome? How about a child's name?
While these questions aren't the type of everyday mystery that would cause sleepless nights in the process of searching for an answer, Levitt applies his economic expertise and gives his own answers in a compelling and quite convincing manner. He is an accomplished economist and he uses statistics in a way that few people could have anticipated to show that the drop in crime rates are due to a simple drop in the number of potential criminals, which can be traced back to abortion rates that skyrocketed after Roe v. Wade. He shows that the average drug dealer makes less than minimum wage but continues in his/her line of work mainly because of hopes and dreams of making the 'big time' and becoming a millionaire drug lord. He shows that parents who forbid their children from playing in homes that contain guns, yet allow them to play where there is a swimming pool may not be making a wise decision, based on statistics.
The results of Levitt's number crunching is both quite intriguing and somewhat rebellious. If there is a theme, it may be that mainstream 'experts' may not always be completely truthful and may be more loyal to a self-serving agenda than reporting the facts. The authors make it clear that they do not favor one side of the spectrum, but are rather reporting the simple numbers, and what they show. The reader is left to make up their own mind. In a time when opinions are spoonfed, such an angle is very much appreciated. This book is stellar and highly recommended.
Interesting - A Must Read if You Want a Different View of Economic Science.......2006-08-17
One thing you will certainly find in this book: A lot of interesting facts and controversial points of view about many things and aspects of the actual world that the most of us consider important. The book is written in a conversational way, and treats everything using a language that is understandable by anyone.
If you don't understand the first thing about economics this book is for you, and if you consider yourself an expert on economic theory this book is still for you. Written by an unorthodox and intelligent economist together with a journalist, this book is absolutely a very interesting and eye opening read. Even when you don't agree with the authors' points of view on an specific topic, you will find yourself thinking about what they said.
Good short story; boring book.......2006-07-22
This is the most over-hyped book I can remember reading. If you've read a magazine or newspaper article about some of the book's insights, then you already know all you need to, as the book jams 30 pages of interesting info into 200 pages. The last 20 pages or so is mainly lists of names to try to make some point that is beaten to death...snore.
Eye-opening, everyday, street-level economics.......2006-06-11
I almost never considered reading this book based on the hideous and cheesy cover. But then I thought, if this book is still a best seller there must be something great lurking beneath the awful cover. And was I happily surprised! After reading just a paragraph I was hooked. I read 20 pages right then and read the rest of the book in less than 24 hours.
The book examines why people behave the way they do in real life, especially in regards to crime. Incentives - rewards or the possibility of one and penalties or the possibility of one - are the motivators of our lives. And they come not just in financial forms, but also in emotional, social, health, moral and other forms. And incentive schemes often have profound, far-ranging unintended consequences. When abortion was re-legalized in the US in 1973, no one suspected that 20+ years later there would be a dramatic dropoff in crime. The reason? Young, unwed pregnant women could suddenly get a safe, legal abortion, and with that the number of children born into poor, broken homes suddenly began dropping overnight. As it turns out, being from a poor, broken home is a good predictor (although certainly no guarantee) that young males (18-25) will embark on a life of crime.
Some of the topics he covers are: why standardized test cheating occurs (by the teachers!), why most drug dealers - despite the Hollywood stereotype - actually still live with their parents, why America's overall crime rate has steadily dropped for the past ten years, how to statistically tell when sporting events are rigged, how the KKK rose and fell, why your child's name doesn't matter, why having a swimming pool is 100x deadlier for your child than owning a gun (and no that isn't an NRA-generated statistic).
Fascinating insight written in effortless, easy style. Outstanding!
Customer Reviews:
un libro sin "tema unificador".......2007-02-16
el sr levitt escribe un libro en el que se pretende no tener un tema unificador, como prodría ser algún tópico de microeconomia o de calculo financiero. Pero el enfoque dado en el texto tiende a favorecer un analisis de diversas situaciones que ocurren en las sociedades desde el punto de vista de hechos verificables, a la luz de los datos confiables, y de un pensamiento no aprisionado bajo algún estereotipo fijado de antemano sino aquel de refutar las creencias populares convencionales.
Not the sum of its parts.......2006-12-12
Let me preface this by saying how psyched I was to read this. Copies at the library were perpetually checked out so when I finally planned ahead and got it on hold I had some anticipation going. This wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't the sum of it's parts.
Each chapter goes into an interesting article on some topic. The best of these for me was the analysis of race and trends in baby names. Something like a third of black babies in California have a name that no other baby in the state has. White babies tend to have the same names as one another. One of the more blah chapters for me was about how the crime drop in the 90s was a result of abortion being legalized. The authors show coorellation but crime is very complex, and the treatment so brief that this seems political and not deep at all. Politics isn't taboo at all, but here it seems to be driving the authors and that doesn't lead to fun interesting eddies. Basically the chapters are a mixed bag. Some are pretty good. Some could easily have been left out, because they just weren't so well done and seem unfocused. They fit together to make a bunch of stand-alone articles, not a single whole book.
Almost any chapter from this book would be good to read. On the other hand, hearing about any one chapter is probably going to raise your expectations. If you like the snippets you hear, then buying the book will get you a heap of those snippets. If you are cool with that then go for it.
Excellent read - Inspired thinking.......2006-08-15
The basic premise of this book is that statistical analysis in the service of micro-economics can be used to illuminate how people actually behave. (This is distinct from the related question of how people ought to be behave, which properly belongs in the realm of ethics or, more dubiously, religion and politics.) In a world that is increasingly divided into murderous factions fueled by absurd beliefs based on centuries-old "wisdom", this book is a breath of fresh air, and its empirical approach to everyday life would do much good, if adopted by world leaders.
Bla Bla the moon is in Uranus.......2006-08-09
Uhm, the decision in Roe v. Wade did not hold that abortion was legal, but that it was a fundamental right under the constitution thus states could not make it illegal. Abortion was legal in many states [maybe most] before Roe. Roe challenged her state's law prohibiting abortion on constitutional grounds. Seems this author is confusing correlation with causation. Maybe this author would hold the Eugenics movement also as socially beneficial [by socially I mean the conservative whitey, and by beneficial I mean fascist]
If you want a good book that tells a good account on the crime rate decline in the 90s read "A New York Murder Mystery." Written by sociologist whom [surprisingly] doesn't make logical leaps by tying bald conclusions to Popular Knowledge ["oh I've heard of Roe v. Wade thus I conclude that I understand what I am reading as true"] In 'Murder Mystery' the author collects many accounts or claims to the decline of crime in the 90s, gives each a detailed investigation, analysis, massive data, and as more as a scientist than a sociologist exposes the weakness of each claim but kindly leaves it to the reader to realize the complete debunking of these claims. Also, the more open reader will determine that the strongest empirical factors for the drop in crime were the strong economy and immigration... That's right conservatives, warmongering, voodoo economics and bigotry = 2006; i.e., greatest deficit, increase in crime, drug use, poverty, ignorance, intelligent design, etc.
Advice; stay away from this pseudoscience garbage, it will only make you dumber [or more dumb]
Over-Rated.......2006-07-08
I really thought this book was pretty crappy. Between the generous margins, double spacing, gratuitous data tables and lists, quotes by various media sources attesting to the authors' and their work's greatness, and the fact that they draw out their points and explanations so much, one wonders whether they are striving for clarity or just filling up space. There are some interesting issues discussed, but in such an unsophisticated manner why even bother with a book? I can get the same level of quality and depth from Headline News, and much quicker at that. And the, as the authors put it, "penultimate" chapter on how parents are unable to make any difference in their children's future is just downright confusing. Not because the point is difficult to grasp, just that it's so poorly explained. The point is that parents' actions do affect how their children turn out but there is really nothing that they can do through conscious effort to improve their parenting skills. Now this is nowhere stated explicitly in the book. And in fact the chapter seems to say that on the one hand parents do have an effect on their children based on such and such data, but on the other hand they have NO effect. What?
Further, the book is sensational. The authors have brought us all this wisdom from a few studies and anecdotes and present it as if the questions it addresses are settled. But even the authors admit that "... an expert whose argument reeks of restraint or nuance often doesn't get much attention (148)." Is this ironic or a conceit?
This book is an extremely easy read and I would seriously hope that anyone with a half-way decent college education would find very little value in this simplistic pulp.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from American Economist, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1022 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything.(Book review)
Author: Milena Kats
Publication:
American Economist (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 50
Issue: 1
Page: 93(2)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Business Economics, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 764 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.(Book review)
Author: Edmund A. Mennis
Publication:
Business Economics (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 41
Issue: 1
Page: 69(1)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2006. The length of the article is 4952 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.(Book review)
Author: Thomas E. Baker
Publication:
Journal of Appellate Practice and Process (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 8
Issue: 1
Page: 101(14)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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