The Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affirmative Action to Immigration, How Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday Life

This is a collection of articles Becker has published during his career as an economic contributer to Business Week. After having read some of Becker's other books, I came to the conclusion that this book is two things:
1) An easy to understand intro to the usage of economic principles to solve problems. Becker's other books were essentially on similar topics, but with a much more rigorous analysis.
2) An intro to new topics that could be approached from a much more rigorous standpoint. Becker's curious mind actually points out to many issues (such as immigration, affirmative action, and many other gov't issues) that would benefit from a more rigorous economic approach.

Good entertainment value, with about 80% of essays really interesting and the rest fillers.

Throughout school students are always complaining about how applicable subjects like economics, math, sociology, etc., really are. Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker helps fill this void in economics. Although I found some of his solutions to social problems too simplistic, it is an interesting read and it is sure to get you thinking. I personally like the books organization and structure. It is a composition of Becker's columns in Business Week and each column is about 1.5 pages. I liked this book because when I sit on the toilet I can get through a column or two. It is also good for a stationary bike or reading in heavy traffic.

This works provides great insight into the economic thinking and reasoning of one of the greatest living economists. It is simple enought for someone without a economics background to understand, yet complex enough for advanced students of economics to study and debate. A great work.

The Economics of Life is a good anthology of Becker's short policy papers over the years. As such, it is useful as a supplemental text for introductory microeconomics. Some might find this book dry reading, but it is quite entertaining compared to standard textbooks.

This book should reach a wider audience too. Now that Milton Friedman is gone, Becker is THE leading proponent of Chicago Rational Choice microeconomics. Those who want to understand policy issues should read this book because it is about the easiest way to get a feel for Chicago microeconomics. See also Hidden Order by David Friedman.

Given the controversial nature of this book it has drawn fire, and will continue to do so. While I freely admit that Chicago price theory has limits, it also has useful applications and relevance. Read The Economics of Life first, judge its merits later.

Based on Becker's columns in Business Week, the book is starting to suffer from the fact that the columns are dating, and that any book made up of columns is bound to get a bit repetitive and disjointed.
That said, the original columns are well-written and often provocative. It's not the best introduction to Becker's economics, which is more distinctive than this material, but it is a good read.