Stephen J. Dubner has narrated 7 audiobooks on Listento.it by 6 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 879 ratings. The most-rated is Freakonomics.
Freakonomics
Summary
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 economist 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 the conventional wisdom on its head. Thus the new field of study contained in this audiobook: Freakonomics. 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 explore the hidden side of...well, everything. The inner working of a crack gang...the truth about real-estate agents...the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking, and Freakonomics will redefine the way we view the modern world.
©2006 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (P)2006 HarperAudio
SuperFreakonomics
Summary
Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies in 35 languages and changing the way we look at the world. Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with Superfreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is: good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky. Freakonomics has been imitated many times over - but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.
©2009 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers
Happily Letter After
Summary
An Amazon Charts bestseller. From New York Times bestselling authors Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward comes a love story about taking chances and the surprises that come with them. My love story all started with a letter. Only it wasn’t from the man I’d eventually fall in love with. It was from his daughter. A sweet little girl named Birdie Maxwell who’d written to the magazine that I worked for. You see, once a year my employer fulfilled a few wishes for readers. Only that column didn’t start up again for months. So I fulfilled some of her wishes myself. It was harmless…so I thought. Until one day I took things too far. While anonymously granting yet another of Birdie’s wishes, I got a look at her father. Her devastatingly handsome, single dad father. I should have stopped playing fairy godmother then. I should have left well enough alone. But I just couldn’t help myself. I had a connection to this girl. One that had me acting irrationally. Like when I showed up on their doorstep.
©2020 Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Think Like a Freak
Summary
The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally - to think, that is, like a Freak. Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria. Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak: First, put away your moral compass - because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it. Learn to say “I don’t know” - for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to. Think like a child - because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions. Take a master class in incentives - because for better or worse, incentives rule our world. Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded - because being right is rarely enough to carry the day. Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting - because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.
©2014 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (P)2014 HarperCollins Canada
When to Rob a Bank
Summary
Why do educated women get fewer responses on online dating websites? Is buying local food economically efficient? Does bribing kids improve their performance on school tests? Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the quirky geniuses behind Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, and Think Like a Freak, are back at it. For the last 10 years, they've used the tools of economics to answer some of our most unanswerable questions on the Freakonomics.com blog. Here, for the first time, the very best of their more than 8,000 posts are together in a single place. We learn why it's so hard to predict the Kentucky Derby, why babies born in summer tend to score lower on standardized tests, and why rich people tend to be happier than poor people but rich countries no happier than poor ones. When to Rob a Bank showcases the brilliance that has made Levitt and Dubner an international sensation and the eloquence and wit that has always made them such a joy to read and listen to.
©2015 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (P)2015 HarperCollins Canada
Gang Leader for a Day
Summary
The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics. Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatest managed to gain entree into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment. When Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he was looking for people to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty. A first-year grad student hoping to impress his professors with his boldness, he never imagined that as a result of the assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade inside the projects under JT's protection, documenting what he saw there. Over the next seven years, Venkatesh got to know the neighborhood dealers, crackheads, squatters, prostitutes, pimps, activists, cops, organizers, and officials. From his privileged position of unprecedented access, he observed JT and the rest of the gang as they operated their crack-selling business, conducted PR within their community, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex organizational structure. In Hollywood speak, Gang Leader for a Day is The Wire meets the University of Chicago. It's a brazen and fundamentally honest view into the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, often corrupt struggle to survive in what is tantamount to an urban war zone. It is also the story of a complicated friendship between Sudhir and JT: two young and ambitious men a universe apart.
©2008 Sudhir Venkatesh (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers
High Voltage
Summary
The first biography to focus exclusively on Angus Young - from his remarkable rise from working-class Glasgow and Sydney to the biggest stages in the world. Angus Young, the cofounder and the last remaining original member of AC/DC, has for more than 40 years been the face, the sound and sometimes the exposed backside of the trailblazing rock band. In his trademark schoolboy outfit, guitar in hand, Angus has given his signature sound to songs such as 'A Long Way to the Top', 'Highway to Hell' and 'Back in Black', helping AC/DC become the biggest rock band on the planet. High Voltage is the first biography to focus exclusively on Angus. It tells of his remarkable rise from working-class Glasgow and Sydney to the biggest stages in the world. The youngest of eight kids, Angus always seemed destined for a life in music, and it was his passion and determination that saw AC/DC become hard rock's greatest act. Over the years Angus has endured the devastating death of iconic vocalist Bon Scott, the forced retirement of his brother-in-arms, Malcolm Young, and more recently the loss from the band of singer Brian Johnson and drummer Phil Rudd. Yet somehow the little guitar maestro has kept AC/DC not just on the rails but at the top of the rock pile.
©2018 Jeff Apter (P)2018 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd