Another Literary Meme

Wednesday, November 1, 2006 7:07 | Filed in Books, Memes, The Pickards

Yes, another one. Pinched from Steve, who pinched it from … ah, bugger it. Go look on Steve’s site if you really want to chase it back.

Anyway, the rules are:

  1. Grab the nearest book.
  2. Open the book to page 123.
  3. Find the fifth sentence.
  4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
  5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

So here goes…

Let’s now consider another crime drop explanation: increased reliance on prisons. It might help to start by flipping the crime question around. Instead of wondering what made crime fall, think about this: why had it risen so dramatically in the first place?

During the first half of the twentieth century, the incidence of violent crime in the United States was, for the most part, fairly steady.

Clues? You want clues? As if it’s not obvious? Okay then…

  • One word title
  • First published in 2005
  • Two authors
  • Probably counts as one of those “cool” or “intellectual” books, but it was the nearest (My mouse was resting on it, so you couldn’t really have got much nearer).

Oh, and if you’re reading this and your name is Lee Gardner, you’re not allowed to say, ‘cos you recommended it to me in the first place.

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5 Comments to Another Literary Meme

  1. Seb Crump says:

    November 1st, 2006 at 8:48 am

    Ha, yes I think I recognise this as I’ve just finished it – but cannot verify as I only have it in audiobook form. To check would it make sense if I stated that my favourite bits were the bagels and the teachers/sumo wrestlers comparison.

    Isn’t this a little discriminatory? :)

  2. JackP says:

    November 2nd, 2006 at 8:52 am

    Yeah, that’s the one. As it’s nearly friday now, I can now reveal the answer — it was Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s excellent book Freakonomics.

  3. A Literary Meme | Joe Dolson Accessible Web Design says:

    May 9th, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    [...] I enjoy reading; so a literary meme seemed like a fun thing to participate in. And it’s a great excuse to talk about one of my favorite authors, so I’m taking the liberty of going thoroughly off topic. This one, I picked up from Emma, who picked it up from ThePickards. [...]

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