When To Rob A Bank - Review

It had been a while since I read a book. I started quite a few of them, never to complete any of them.

One fine day, as I was browsing through Amazon, I came across - When To Rob A Bank. It was love at first sight. The next click revealed the authors of the book - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (popularly known as SDL and SJD). It was their 4th work. 

When To Rob A Bank

I had read their first 3 books - Freakonomics, Super Freakonomics and Think Like A Freak , and I am a keen fan of their writing. I made up my mind to read this shortly. And surprise surprise, my better half gifted this book to me a few weeks later !

Needless to say, I started reading it in the next few days, in the midst of a crunching work schedule.

Not many of us think about robbing bank, leave aside actually robbing one. Then why should we read this book?

The book is a collection of their blogs from their website. WTRB features around 100+ blogs, grouped by common themes in around 12 chapters.

The blogs have been written by the authors, and in some cases by their associates, on a wide ranging topics - right from "Why is McDonald's better than KFC?" to "Why Don't Flight Attendants Get Tipped?". The chapters in the book analyse diverse and quirky topics from an economics perspective. The surprising inferences drawn by the authors would impress you.

Some of the stories are really short. However, only a few of them will leave you really disinterested. Most of them make for short and interesting reading. The names of the chapters are themselves offbeat . Don't be surprised by "If You'e Not Cheating, You're Not Trying" and "More Sex Please, We're Economists".

An interesting chapter, written before 2008 by the authors, predicted that Barack Obama has the potential to be the President of the United States. The authors proudly proclaim this to be one of their few predictions which came true.

Overall, this is a very good book for anyone who is interested is basic economics, data analytics and quirky topics. This is must read for SJD and SDL fans.

Don't miss this one.