Superfreakonomics, by S.D. Levitt and S.J. Dubner

I really enjoyed Freakonomics, so I was excited to read the sequel.  I was not disappointed.  The book is interesting and fun to read.  I enjoyed learning about different topics and different people in each chapter. 

A quick summary: It’s really hard to provide a summary for this one, since each chapter talked about something different.  So, I will just copy the chapter titles here:

-          How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?

-          Why should suicide bombers buy life insurance?

-          Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism

-          The fix is in – and it’s cheap and simple

-          What do Al Gore and Mount Pinutabo have in common?

-          Epilogue: Monkeys are people too

Don’t the chapter titles sound interesting?  I have to say, whenever I got to a new chapter and saw the title, I couldn’t wait to read more.

Freakonomics was actually one of the first nonfiction books I enjoyed.  Reading that book made me start reading more nonfiction.  Superfreakonomics was as good as Freakonomics, so I would definitely recommend it, whether you’re really into nonfiction or just want to try and see whether nonfiction is something you would enjoy.

Although I enjoy nonfiction, I usually read more fiction than nonfiction.  It's a bit surprising that my first two posts are about nonfiction books....But there will be some fiction coming this way soon!

A Jane Austen Education, by W. Deresiewicz

Full title:  

A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter

As a Jane Austen fan, when I saw this book at the bookstore, I knew I had to read it.  I expected to like it, but I actually ended up loving this book!

A quick summary: The author is a grad student who is forced to read Emma in one of his courses.  As someone who read, I guess, “manly” books, he wasn’t too excited about this.  At some point while reading Emma, though, we could say he became a Janeite.  After reading Emma, he read her other novels and even included a chapter on Jane Austen in his dissertation.  In A Jane Austen Education, he has one chapter for each of Austen’s major novels, and writes the novels and about what he learned from each novel and how he applied those life lessons, well, in his life.

There were so many things I learned and identified with. It’s hard to pick which ones to talk about, but here goes.  One of the things he wrote about was choosing the right friends, and this really resonated with me because I can certainly say I have on occasion chosen the wrong friends.  The author many times quoted Jane Austen as saying that “Wisdom is better than Wit, & in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.”  I think many times I have chosen friends based on their wit, and not necessarily on their wisdom.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with wit.  In fact, I think it’s an excellent quality to have.  The problem I think comes when there is wit without wisdom.  When it comes to friends, ideally you would want someone who you could certainly have fun with, but also someone you could talk to about serious things and ask for advice.  Although we like to think we’re individuals and make our own decisions, the truth is the people we spend time with affect us in different ways.  When these people lack wisdom, you run the risk of becoming this way as well, and as a result, the decisions you make will not necessarily be the right ones. 

Reading this book made me think about how I choose friends and whether I am doing this the way I should be doing this.  The author wrote: “…I saw that there’s a better way to value people.  Not as fun or not fun, or stylish or not stylish, but as warm or cold, generous or selfish.  People who think about others and people who don’t.  People who know how to listen, and people who only know how to talk.”  I hope to remember to value people for the right reasons.

I would recommend this book, even if you are not a Jane Austen fan.  I found the author to be very thoughtful and honest, and reading his book felt like talking to a friend.