The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World

Tim Harford

Jan 2008 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by John Lee

About this audiobook

Life sometimes seems illogical. Individuals do strange things: take drugs, have unprotected sex, mug each other. Love seems irrational, and so does divorce. On a larger scale, life seems no fairer or easier to fathom: Why do some neighborhoods thrive and others become ghettos? Why is racism so persistent? Why is your idiot boss paid a fortune for sitting behind a mahogany altar? Thorny questions–and you might be surprised to learn the answers from an economist.

But Tim Harford, award-winning journalist and author, likes to spring surprises. In this deftly reasoned audiobook, Harford argues that life is logical after all. Under the surface of everyday insanity, hidden incentives are at work, and Harford shows these incentives emerging in the most unlikely places. THE LOGIC OF LIFE is the first book to map out the astonishing insights and frustrating blind spots of a new economics in a way that anyone can enjoy.

THE LOGIC OF LIFE presents an X-ray image of human life, stripping away the surface to show us a picture that is revealing, enthralling, and sometimes disturbing. The stories that emerge are not about data or equations but about people. Once you’ve listened to this addictive audiobook, life will never look the same again.

About the author

Tim Harford is an award-winning journalist, economist, and broadcaster. He's the author of the bestselling The Undercover Economist, The Undercover Economist Strikes Back, Messy, Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy, Adapt, and The Logic of Life. Harford is currently a senior columnist at the Financial Times and host of the BBC Radio 4 program More or Less. He has been named Economics Commentator of the Year (2014), won the Rybczynski Prize (2014–2015) for the best business-relevant economics writing, and won the Bastiat Prize for economic journalism (2006). He's a visiting fellow of Nuffield College at the University of Oxford and lives in Oxford with his family.

JOHN LEE's highly innovative work in the fields of emotional intelligence, anger management, and emotional regression has made him an in-demand consultant, teacher, trainer, coach, and speaker. His contributions in the fields of recovery, relationships, men’s issues, spirituality, parenting, and creativity have put him in the national spotlight for over 20 years. Lee has been featured on Oprah, 20/20, Barbara Walters’ The View, CNN, PBS, and NPR. He has been interviewed by Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and dozens of other national magazines and radio talk shows.For over 25 years, Lee has conducted private and group sessions on a variety of issues working with men, women, couples, and families. He lectures, gives workshops and trainings in cities all over the world, delivering sensitive, yet sophisticated material to audiences in a humorous and simple way everyone can understand. His lectures have been branded as “hilariously entertaining, deeply compassionate, yet filled with ‘tell it like it is!’”Lee served as a professor at the University of Texas and at the University of Alabama before becoming a writer, bestselling author, life coach, and personal consultant. He currently resides on breathtaking Lookout Mountain in Mentone, Alabama with his three happy dogs.