The Economic Naturalist

I just finished another good book. It's called The Economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank. When I first picked it up in the bookstore and read a few pages - it reminded me a lot of Freakonomics, The Tipping Point and Blink. The subtitle is "In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas". He teaches economics and the collections in the book are papers that students turned in for their final grade - expanded upon and edited by Frank himself. To give you a flavor of the book, some of the searches include "Why does milk come in square containers and soda round?", 'Why is there a light in the refrigerator but not the freezer?", "Why are DVDs packaged in huge boxes when they could be in the same size packages as CDs?", "Why is squatting legal?", "Why can you rent a $20,000 car for $40 a day, but a $400 tuxedo rents for $125?". These types of things interest me as I like to know how things work. What the book is trying to get you to do is to understand that there are a myriad of reasons behind the costs associated with consumer goods. The more of these snippets you read - the more likely you'll be able to come up with the next answer yourself. It's also broken up into very small sections making it a good book for the pool or before bed. If something comes up, you usually only to have read a little further to get to the next snippet. While it's not as good as the other books I mentioned here - it's good enough to satisfy the curious reader.