True celebrity

I’m often asked who thought up the name “Freakonomics.” The answer is my sister Linda. As soon as we set out to write a book, I knew she would be the one to name it. She is the most creative person I’ve ever met.

When she isn’t thinking up book titles, her day job is running www.yarnzilla.com, an online and brick and mortar yarn store.

She recently sent me this e-mail describing a conversation at her yarn store in Minnesota:

So I’m manning my yarn store last Saturday, and the shop is full of a mixture of knitting “regulars” and some new customers who were starting a series of sock-knitting classes. The regulars are very familiar with Freakonomics, and they often ask questions about you, and about the book On Saturday, some of them brought up the book — without even mentioning the name — and asked how it was selling, how the board game was coming, was there going to be a paperback version, etc. One of the new customers — who was trying to tune into the rather telegraphic conversation while at the same time listening to the sock-knitting instructions — suddenly put two and two together. “Oh my god!” she squealed, throwing down her knitting. “Thomas L. Friedman is your brother?!?!!?”