Freakonomics - Q & A

I have not written in a while so here is an extremely long review of one of the books I read recently. Hopefully I will be able to establish a stricter routine soon but for now this is all I can offer. Another week comes to an end.

Freakonomics

Stephen D. Levitt &
Stephen J. Dubner

Penguin

"Freakonomics" is everywhere. No matter what you choose to do, where you choose to go or even when you want to do it. Freakonomics is everywhere, seriously. This argument is further encouraged by the fact that some of the most unexpected and perhaps unlikeliest of people to read books of any sort, have mentioned it to me recently. I was taken aback by their wealth of knowledge, of their insightful understanding of what underpins our existence. I suppose though, in retrospect, that what they had simply referred to on those rainy afternoons was that freakonomics was in fact, everywhere. The book that is. “The advertising campaign had been stunning,” commented one of those individuals. “No matter where you went, there was the book, somewhere making you want to read it,” the other one had chimed in at some point.

Now this is the book rather than that weird story.

“Freakonomics” is already a bestseller and it has been since it first came out as a hardback. The hardback cover was excellent and first drew my attention to it when working at Books Etc. As far as I can remember it was a small city, comprising of a couple of buildings, streets, cars, people, etc. In short, it was a microcosm of the world and the things we do. The book had also been subtitled as ‘A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything’. Brilliant title; it will sell many copies. The design was as though everything was constituted of tiny blocks, like lego, or like information blocks – data. Data is essentially numbers and the idea of having the world explained through them is fascinating. I suppose it served its purpose, the hardcover that is, and only through a different, more accessible and commercial cover, could the book reach a truly wide audience. It still says ‘A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything’, but somehow it doesn’t feel the same.

Anyways, the book is alright. I like this academic journalism that makes difficult and complex ideas very accessible and almost easy. Malcolm Gladwell comes to mind (and is preferred.) Levitt is an economist who graduated from Harvard. He has been hailed with prizes of all sorts, recognized as one of the leading intellectualists of his still very young life. Unlike other economists, however, Levitt is different. He says that he is “not good at math, I don’t know a lot of econometrics, and I also don’t know how to do theory.” But for Levitt, “economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions.” Dubner on the other hand is a journalist, who once interviewed Levitt in order to write an article about him for the New York Times. In the end the joined their creative powers and, in terms of asking interesting questions and finding answers through numbers, this book certainly succeeds. It is only when I go back to my lifeless ambitions of a world’s microcosm that I feel quite disappointed.

Economics is about incentives. People function through incentives and a lot of their actions depend on them. Hence academics want to be as recognized as possible by fellow peers and ideally history, drug dealers want to make the most amount of money possible to, generally, escape their poor surroundings, and sumo wrestlers want to win as many matches as possible, as the best of them are treated like semi-gods in Japan. However, some incentives create negative responses from humans, cheating and success often being inseparable.

This book, and indeed what distinguishes Levitt from other, more standard stiff collared economics, is the ability to ask unlikely questions. Questions like ‘What do estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common?’, ‘Why do drug dealers live with their mothers?’ and ‘How can your name affect how well you do in life?’ are at the heart of this book. By applying numbers to a set of data. One example is the sudden and inexplicable crime drop in the U.S. in the 1990’s. Nobody could explain its initial rise and even less so its sudden drop. People cited increased police numbers, new schemes, more arrests, new governors and all sorts of things as reasons. The truth was simple as abortion having been made legal 20 years earlier. All the would be criminals were thus not born and combined with other elements, such as a stabilized and improving economy, crime dropped incredibly fast.

Overall the book was interesting although it didn’t cover a lot of new territory. The analysis of the drop in crime rate, seems like old news and some of the other strange questions asked, such as ‘What do sumo wrestlers and teachers have in common?’, whilst being intriguing and fun, don’t offer anything definitive to the reader. The answer to the above question seemed merely to be that by studying numbers, it could be figured out that both sumo wrestlers and teachers cheat and that perhaps they have been offered the wrong incentives. It is useful to think that the right incentives can bring the right results, just imagine fighting things like obesity or perhaps even immigration, but all of that surely is already known for that is exactly why we have economists. “Freakonomics” is a highly entertaining and commercial books, which will help pass some dreary moments on the tube or bus and may even inspire you to try and analyze your surroundings a little bit more, but in other than asking off the wall questions, it doesn’t answer any more pressing matters concerning the world we live in.

M.M.

Standardisation - A Week and a Half

The week is over, finally. A hectic one it was too and since I started writing this another week is halfway through as well. Having completed my by far most difficult exams, Publishing as a Business and Publishing Law, I am now only two steps away from the finishing line (there is that minor and annoying hurdle of a dissertation left - but that is not on my mind right now). The third exam has also been done although that was probably the biggest struggle so far, as a cold and headache and a freezing room didn't make two hours of BS any easier. However, the champagne is on ice and the puppies in the oven. Along with exams there is nothing like a cold to keep you from sleeping, a flat tyre (the second in 5 times riding a brand new bike), and the hassle as class represantative (how I regret having volunteered for that) of having to discuss various 'issues' with our lecturer, firstly in a form of a letter. A letter which I wrote and feared was too harsh and hence enabling me to lose some sleep over that as well. On the plus side I ate lots of fruit and have had a sober mind for what is probably been way too long now.

Enough rambling (although that is all this ever amounts to, I know). WTC Dowling blessed this blog with another one of those invaluable, unknown words, which I already tried using, only to be met my some of the ugliest most unbelieving eyes ever. (Yes, eyes can be ugly.) Below I have also posted the link to one of my latest reviews for Subba-Cultcha, which is about M.Craft. Never heard of him? Same here. The music though is quite good so it might be worth giving him a go. Most of the reviews of unknown bands/aritists have to be generous, but this one is actually quite honest. There is also another review of a gig I went to from a band called Four Day Hombre, who actually had some good moments but resembled Coldplay too much for my liking (however you would never have guessed that from my review..) Check them out if you can be bothered. Other than that there has just been a lot of sneezing, worrying, spitting, shitting, eating, drinking, lying, watching, hoping, despairing, panicking, elation, surpising, drinking, laughing, cooking, swearing, punching, walking, sitting, etc, etc.

That's it for now but no doubt there will be more unintersting stuff to follow eventually. Just another quick note, anybody reading this who is interested in publishing and has been following the Charkin blog, check out the Review section of The Observer and look for the Robert McCrum (literary editor) whose column "World of the Book" appears every two weeks. Likewise, check out Joel Rickett's column in The Guardian on Saturday's called "The Bookseller", which appears on a weekly basis. They are two of the most insightful and quick ways to get updated on the publishing world. (You can even do so through the Internet, no payments required.)

That's all folks.

M. Craft Review:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1989

Four Day Hombre live gig review:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1951

M.M.

Bloggy Hell: Transmogrify

Weird Word of the Week: TRANSMOGRIFY
OED definition: "transform in a surprising or magical manner"
How to use it:
This puppy is especially weird. This word apparently believes in magic. Try throwing it in at the end of a wild night out, just on the transitional cusp of high to low as the party peaks and boredom sets in. For example: "Wow, what a party!" (slight pause) "Sigh. What the shit's going on? This night's transmogrified into some kind of living hell. I'm going home. And I'm taking these nachos with me."

But that's a bit limited. Where's the magic? I suppose the traditional usage of this peculiar verb would be the old 'princess-frog-kiss-prince' chestnut. Let's try it out:

Princess Fladgella kissed the warty frog on the lips. Kazam! A strange but predictable transformation had taken place - the tailless amphibian had transmogrified into a foppish, effeminate prince, complete with blonde-highlighted mullet and fashionable women's jeans. "Release me, you sow!" squealed the prince, slapping Princess Fladgella hard across the face.

You can also use this word in religious renditions of Jesus abusing his Godly powers to get his companions shit-faced. For example:

And, lo, Jesus went to the wedding reception and saw that there was not enough wine to go around. He decided to transmogrify the water. He held His hand out, feeling the power of the Force flow through His quivering fingertips. The wedding guests gasped as they tasted the water Jesus had transmogrified with his phantasmagorical Jedi powers.
"This is not water," said David of Sidcup, "This is Cherry Lambrini. It is a miracle. Praise the Lord. Woo. Go Creationism. Blah blah blah."
And, yay, then the Son of God did turn to the fish-fingers. He held out His magical and perceivably unethical hand...

Ok, that's it for this week. Or month. Take care.

Rethpec

Construction Finished - For Now

With the help of my esteemed friend Dr. Z, I have finally been able to get this blog working properly again. The problem with this webpage XTML language or whatever it is called is that sometimes the whole thing doesn't seem to work because you missed some tiny quotation mark or other annoying symbol like <>. Either way, it is pretty much where it should be now and closely resembles what it was before.

The only new bit really is the "Indie Publishers", which of course stands for Independent Publishers. In my opinion they are definitely amongst the best, but some other good ones, unfortunately don't have a homepage that is working properly (like Atlantic and Serpent's Tail). Why exactly that is the case I don't know because I can't think of much better, cheaper and effective advertising than that. But there are many people that know a lot better than me.

New to the list are Faber & Faber who are by far the culturally and historically richest out of the entire list, with the only possible exception of Granta perhaps. One of Faber's first editors was T.S. Eliot who helped them establish their amazing poetry portfolio, which is still one of their strengths today. The amount of quality books they have published is impossible to list but they include 2004 Booker Prize winner D.B.C. Pierre, another Booker Prize winner and multiple nominee Kazuo Ishiguro and one of my all-time favourites Paul Auster. Those are just some of the contemporary ones, for a general overview check out their homepage.

The Friday Project was on my links before. They are one of the newest and most exciting commercial publishing ventures out there at the moment. Run primarily by a former newspaper correspondant Paul Carr and multiple conglomerate experienced publisher Clare Christian. Recent developments have revealed that Scott Pack, who had been voted by The Observer as the single most influential individual in the publishing industry, will be joining their venture and will inevitably lend some publishing expertise to their developing list. Pack is equally hated and loved in the industry, more hated I would say, as he single handedly seems to decide what books Waterstone's stock, promote, support, despise, etc. Just what he can do to the Friday Project remains to be seen.

Constable & Robinso publish mostly non-fiction such as The Corporation by Joel Bakal, which I recommend to anyone who gives a dirt about this rotten place called world and other political, current affairs and history titles. Having said that, their new Editor seems to have pinched Monica Ali from previous publisher Random House so her future books (not the one coming out this summer) should be published by Constable.

Finally there is Granta. They have a long standing reputation of attracting and finding young authors, some of whom have become household names for many people. Ian McEwan is just one such example. In their magazines they publish unheard of authors and a lot of short stories and also have multiple awards and competitions on a regular basis. If someone gets published in their magazine, you can be sure they will publish a book soon afterwards. Also, David Graham, who was M.D. Director of Canongate and played a big rule in their recent resurgence as one of the strongest Indies, has joined Granta in the same position to develop and improve their fiction list.

There you have it for Indie Publishers. A lot of things happening all the time and I will try to rotate them as much as possible or just keep adding to them.

Good sites features some friends whose art everybody should support, quite frankly because it is damn good. Subba-Cultcha is an online magazine where I write a few reviews, more or less on a weekly basis ranging from DVD to CDs and Computer Games. On the links below you can see my few first ones, one on the Velvet Underground another on some crap computer game and one on Jim Moray. Its a strong Indie site so support it when you can.

I should really be studying for exams that start tomorrow and can't be faced going through the blogs which are more or less self explanatory. If you are into publishing, I can say that regularly checking the Charkin Blog can be very rewarding. He is one of the most outspoken, eccentric and some even say charismatic publishing individuals. He oversees Macmillan UK and is undoubtedly one of the most respected and powerful men in the industry. More on the rest some other time.

For the computer game:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1793

For the Velvet Underground:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1843

For the Jim Moray:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1871

M.M.

Final Week: Final Day

A normal start to the day really. With a tinge of indifference I begin the day by writing what will eventually become my blog entry of the previous day. I usually do this on my ‘Ebury Complimentary Slip.’ The irony just feels fitting somehow. After that I completed the mailout for “Iran Awakening”, once again allowing myself ample amounts of time to do so. I have heard office stress and panic is not a very nice feeling, so I want to avoid this at all costs. When I did finally finish, Carolina gave me a completely new assignment to do, reinforcing my theory that good things come too late and mere last a short time (at least in terms of work). The assignment required for me to do research on an author whose latest book spontaneously managed to sell 7,000 copies in one week alone. That’s a hell of a lot of copies for someone that doesn’t enjoy celebrity status and is published by a tiny company in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny country called Wales (the publisher is called Crown House Publishing and the link for them is below). This is one of the benefits of Amazon.com I suppose; it provides a platform and market opportunity that even the smallest publishers can benefit from. Although the negatives of Amazon probably outweigh the positives, this is one valuable aspect that has to be recognized by even the greatest cynics.

Anyways, this author has got another similar book coming out so I was meant to look at potential publicity angles, provide a general author biography and take a closer look at her previous book, all of which will be taken into account during next weeks acquisition meeting. (The book has been offered to Ebury but presumably also a whole of other publishers. At the meeting the publicity, marketing and sales departments will pitch their ideas on why she should choose them over another company. Generally what authors seem to consider most important is the initial fee that they will get paid as an advance, the royalties they will earn afterwards and if the he/she can get along with the publishing company in general.)

I wrote a two page report and was told by Caroline that we would discuss it after lunch. Apparently she will tell me then how she would approach it in terms of whom to do mail outs to (radio, tv, newspapers, magazines, etc.) I will have to wait and see if that happens though, as right now I am writing this during what has become an almost two and a half hour long lunch break. The rest of the afternoon was really only spend doing mailouts for books that I can’t remember at a very slow pace. Caroline did eventually come and talk to me and basically said that the report was good and then we chatted for a while about general publishing stuff. It was a good last day I suppose and I was even given a bottle of champagne and two bags full of books I could choose. Not bad but now exams await.

http://www.crownhouse.co.uk

Final Week: Day 4

I can’t really remember how it started. All I know is that today Iain Stephenson will come and visit the placement to find out how the placement has been going.

It’s come back to me now. I started the day by completing the mail out for the Judy Marks books. Whilst doing this I was just reading music reviews from the weekend papers and magazines, as I need to learn the ‘music review lingo’ for some reviews I started doing for an online magazine. (The link is pasted below for now, but once I complete my internship diaries I will change some of the links on this site and it will be up.) Once I finished the mail out Ed asked me to get rid of some old newspapers. This took me a while. I can’t remember what I did after that. I may have done some filing but somehow I made it to lunch.

After lunch there was nothing for me to do so I quite literally sat around for a while. After that I did some filing for nearly an hour and then Stephenson arrived. To make a short story even ever shorter, it was extremely disappointing. He had originally said that he would talk to me and Caroline separately for 15 minutes each, before then having a conversation all three of us together. Instead he spoke to both of us together for no more than 15 minutes. This meant that if I wanted to be honest I would be ‘burning my bridges’ and probably offend the company. So I basically lied and said I really enjoyed absolutely every aspect of the internship and learned huge amounts. My ‘mentor’ Caroline summed the dialogue up adequately by saying “That was short and sweet.” (She seemed a bit nervous during the talk, as if what I chose to say would have a huge impact on her future.) The rest of the day I basically spend doing another mail out for “Iran Awakening” and left a bit early to go to University and get my exam schedule. Boring..

http://www.thefridayproject.co.uk/