A book: Freakonomics

I've always been fascinated with economics but have never been able to go beyond a basic course because the information comes all at once (it seems that way to me anyway) -- the type that gets very boring very fast, and in frighteningly large amounts of it too -- so I give up. I'm still interested in it and I've tried learning it on my own since and have made incredibly slow progress.

Given my pathetic background on the subject, I was apprehensive to pick up this book but was surprised to have read it with ease, I understood more than I thought I would. Some of the data (there's simply too many of those freakin' name statistics to absorb) went over my head but the things in this book, while probably pretty useless if you expect this knowledge to effect considerable change in the material aspect of your life, are worth at least being aware of.