"Oh, so what did you think?"

Have succumbed twice to this fad of reading the most popular book doing the rounds - the last time it was Da Vinci Code, now it is Freakonomics - everyone either just read it, has an opinion on it, is meaning to read it, saw someone reading it - no exaggeration, last wkend, traveling with it in hand, I had 4 strangers make conversation with me about the book (and considering 3 of them were women and 2 of them good looking at that, gimme more of these books! :)).

It's a quick page-turner, easy-to-read, interesting book. The authors accumulate huge amount of statistics, plough through the data aloud with the reader, and arrive at an often-unexpected conclusion that leaves me raising an eyebrow sometimes. My favorite pieces were the one on the clinical dismantling of the Ku Klux Klan and the "audit report" (and such functioning financials) of the Black Gangster Disciple Nation accumulated by a very brave, certain, Sudhir Venkatesh. The analysis to prove teachers cheat too was nicely done. The pieces on abortion (being a never-before-cited reason for crime rates falling in the late 90's..yes! - most quotable piece from the book though..) and parenting left me a tad unconvinced.

Its also one of those great cocktail party books - picture this - wine in hand, art in the background, impeccably dressed in black, exhausted talking about weather, war, Katrina, and the President, now what?..Freakonomics; eliciting the response, "oh, so what did you think?"