Perhaps I was too influenced by reviews beforehand. I expected to be blown away. Certainly some conclusions presented in this book were eye-opening, but I wouldn't say that I was "gasping in amazement". I didn't mind that there wasn't any unifying theme - it just made the book more like a collection of essays, which is fine. I did mind, however, the lack of consistency throughout the book. Sometimes the authors backed up their conclusions by providing some data, addressing all significant factors, anticipating questions the reader might ask, then answering them. In this way, I thought the two chapters on crime and teachers / sumo wrestlers were the best written. Other chapters, like the one on parenting and education, were much less cogent. The authors seemed to hand-wave their way through explanations, and I was left with many unanswered questions.
Sometimes, the most interesting part of a chapter was not the data analysis - which was, at times, weak anyway - but the people involved and the context in which the data was acquired.
Overall, it's probably worth reading if you can get it for free. It does broaden your thinking and introduces you to unconventional ways of looking at things. Just approach it more like a light-hearted read, and less like an intellectual study.
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