Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. I am recording this on November 11th, 2025, which is the very day that the 20th anniversary edition of our book Freakonomics is being published. To celebrate, we've put together this bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio. The episode has two parts.

The first one is very short.

It's just me reading the new forward for the 20th anniversary edition of the book.

After that, you will hear me again in conversation with Jeff Bennett at a recent live event in Washington, D.C.

Jeff is host of PBS NewsHour.

I only met him recently, but I think he's pretty great, and I would be surprised if you didn't agree. Big thanks to him, also to Sixth and I in D.C. for hosting the event, especially to Jackie Leaventhall and Clara Wallace. Thanks also to everyone who came out that night, and thanks to all of you who listened to Freakonomics radio every week, and thanks to everyone who's ever read Freakonomics or will read it now in the 20th anniversary edition.

Plainly, I have a lot to be thankful for.

The last 20 years have been pretty wonderful, and I can't wait for the next 20.

Okay, so here's today's bonus episode, starting with the new forward from the 20th anniversary edition of Freakonomics.

One recent day, I stood in my office and stared down a big, stupid mountain of plastic file boxes.

I've been staring them down for a few years now.

They are full of notebooks and research files and manuscripts, the byproducts of a writing career,

no longer essential but not quite disposable either.

That was my dilemma, and it had me paralyzed.

But on this day, I finally decided I was going to get rid of it all.

The past is past, I told myself.

Life's too short to be weighed down by nostalgia.

I started looking around for those extra large trash bags.

And then my phone chimed.

It was a text from my friend Steve Levitt.

Happy 20th anniversary.

Not many people get to ride the same train for two decades.

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