"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...

"Marriage is a mysterious, often irrational business. Making it work till death do you part--or just till the end of the week--isn't always easy. And no one ever handed you a user's manual. Until now. Here, Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson offer something new: a clear-eyed, rational route to demystifying your disagreements and improving your relationship. The key, they propose, is to think like an economist. Economics is the study of resource allocation,...

"Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? Drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of suffering sets...

"The United States currently holds the distinction of housing nearly one-quarter of the world's prison population. But our reliance on mass incarceration, Fox Butterfield argues, misses the intractable reality: As few as 5 percent of families account for half of all crime, and only 10 percent account for two-thirds. In introducing us to the Bogle family, the author invites us to understand crime in this eye-opening new light. He chronicles the malignant...

"While the City Sleepsis an extraordinary work of scholarship from one of Argentina's leading historians of modern Buenos Aires society and culture. In the late nineteenth century, the city saw a massive population boom and large-scale urban development. With these changes came rampant crime, a chaotic environment in the streets, and intense class conflict. In response, the state expanded institutions that were intended to bring about social order...

This history of mankind's battles against infectious diseases looks at how epidemics shaped empires and economies and how medical revolutions freed us from these cycles until new threats caused by changes in global trade and climate.

"Bina Venkataraman sees the way forward. A former journalist and adviser in the Obama administration, she helped communities and businesses prepare for climate change, and she learned firsthand why people don't think ahead-and what can be done to change that. In The Optimist's Telescope, she draws from stories she has reported around the world and new research in biology, psychology, and economics to explain how we can make decisions that benefit...

"The notion of "happily ever after" has been ingrained in many of us since childhood--meet someone, date, have the big white wedding, and enjoy your well-deserved future. But why do we buy into this idea? Is love really all we need in life? Laurie Essig invites us to flip our feelings about Romance and see it for what it really is--an ideology that we desperately cling to as a way to cope with the fact that we believe we cannot control or affect the...