I used the time on the airplane to devour Freakonomics and the Tipping Point. I found Freakonomics a much more informative book, and although the authors claimed that there was no unifying theme for it, all the stories reinforced quite well their notion that looking at datasets in new, unexpected ways can reveal some startling conclusions. On the other hand, the Tipping Point was much more structured and presented a coherent framework for describing all kinds of epidemics. However, I don’t think I got as much out of it. It didn’t quite present a framework for understanding and diagnosing epidemics (not just medical!) and it didn’t have enough practical advice for controlling one. Maybe I expected to have too much of it spelled out, clearly it was all contained in the chapters but it’d require some work to put into practice.