I enjoy books of puzzles or brainteasers. Often, the answer is staring you in the face, and only becomes obvious once it is revealed. I felt that way a lot when reading Steven Landsburg's Can You Outsmart an Economist?
This isn't your traditional book of puzzles though. It does have some of the usual fare, but mostly they are designed and grouped together in order to teach some basic economic understanding. I found that aspect of the book the most interesting, but simultaneously the most off-putting. The puzzles and solutions are good, and the transitions between them are logical and well explained. However, Landsburg has an at times rather arrogant style of writing that will turn off some readers. I feel like I can write that with some authority, since a journal reviewer once claimed that I wrote in "the style of an arrogant economist".
Landsburg is good at picking where the general reader will get the puzzles wrong. But not always - in the section on strategy, when it is obvious that one of the games is repeated, I suspect that some readers will genuinely outsmart the economist.
I found a few points of interest to me in the book, aside from the puzzles themselves. The section on the difference between shared knowledge and common knowledge was interesting, as was the description of a 'zero-knowledge proof'.
However, this book isn't going to be to everyone's liking. If you are an economist, or open to developing a deeper understanding of the application of economics to, often abstract, puzzles, then this book is for you. Otherwise, I would recommend giving it a miss.
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