SuperFreakonomics by: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, is the follow-up to the highly successful Freakonomics, and easily one of the more entertaining books that I have read in a long, long time. I missed the Freakonomics bandwagon when it rolled through town several years ago and I’ve been kicking myself for that after I finished the first few pages of SuperFreakonomics. I will say that I am not an economist, and this is not an econ book that you would find in most collage econ classes (maybe for an extra credit assignment or something). This book is an entertaining, yet harrowing and intense read – it sheds some new light on some of the issues that are facing the world today and gave me a different perspective on things that I thought that I fully understood, yet apparently, I didn’t.
Some random examples of the serious and not so serious variety include:

The book opens with a chapter on Chicago prostitutes working with a pimp is financially more rewarding than a prostitute working alone. Additionally, high-end escorts have less actual sex the higher their rate is. Of course, I’m not a prostitute but I’m all about working less and making more.  Other topics that the book covers includes:

• Lower birthrates in India when cable TV was introduced because of the autonomy of women.
• Nobel Prize winners and baseball Hall of Famers live longer, as do annuity buyers because of incentive to collect more.
• A child born in south-east Uganda and Michigan born in certain months are more likely to have issues due to the large Muslim population and Ramadan.

In the last chapter, Capuchin monkeys can be taught to use money, to not only “buy” food, but they will also pay a premium for food that they like more. In a bit of an unexpected turn, the last chapter circles back around to the first – with the first documented case of monkey prostitution.

This of course, is only a small glimpse into the book – everything mentioned above is fully explained in detail in the book. Even if the thought of monkey prostitution creeps you out, give a few chapters a whirl, I don’t think that you’ll be disappointed.

If you’re only going to read two business books this year, this should be one of them.  The other should be Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk (more on that later).  What Would Google Do? is Jeff Jarvis’ analysis of what Google – one of the fastest growing and most powerful companies in the world of new media – did to get to where it is today.  It’s not just about what Google did and why though, Jarvis gives plenty of other real world examples of other companies that have used some of the Google techniques in their own business  plan to help them gain momentum and standout against the competition.

I only have two brief criticisms of the book.  At times, the book might not seem to have direction – it’s organized, but could benefit from some re-orginzation.  Additionally, it would have been nice if the author would have included a list of all of the websites listed in the book in one easy to use location.  These are two very minor faults in a book that could change the way that you do business for the better.  If nothing else, this book will open your eyes with real world examples of what Google and anyone who wants to be successful would do.