Misbehaving by Richard H. Thaler

Published 2015 · 110,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Politics & Society, Psychology

How hard is Misbehaving to read?

Misbehaving scores 27 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 30 out of 100
Economics concepts explained with humor and clarity.
Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
Abstraction: 38 out of 100
Economic theory grounded in entertaining examples.
Information density: 45 out of 100
Rich with research findings, anecdotes, and economic concepts.
Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
Chronological intellectual autobiography with thematic chapters.
Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
Analytical rather than symbolic.
Ironic distance: 25 out of 100
Thaler writes with self-deprecating humor about his battles with mainstream economics.
Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
The story ends with vindication: the Nobel Prize.
Structural complexity: 20 out of 100
Chronological with thematic sections. Well-organized.

How Misbehaving is regarded

Misbehaving holds a literary regard score of 47 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Richard H. Thaler