As a nerd of the econ major variety, I was highly anticipating the arrival of this book once I'd won it through First Reads. Luckily for me, the book didn't disappoint.

Books of this type tend to go wrong in one of 2 ways: 1) The "facts" are simply not true, and the book serves to sell rather than to actually provide real information. Or 2) An intelligent economist writes a factual yet way too dense for the common public text. This book did a great job of falling into neither of those traps. It had legitimate facts & some economic theory explained correctly (not bent to mean what the author WANTS it to mean - you'll find that in any newspaper these days). But what I found the most impressive was just how accessible Eduardo Porter made the material. You do NOT need to be an econ major to understand this book. And if you ARE that interested in the more analytical details of topics referenced, there is a detailed section in the back of the book noting original sources and where you can find them.

This book never promises answers to the world's problems, but it sheds a light on why a few of them might be occurring. It presents an interesting view of the motivations behind actions of people from different cultures and parts of the world. Bottom line: don't let the base premise scare you off this book if you're not a nerd like me. There's a lot here to appreciate, even if prices and economics aren't topics you'd normally read about.