Recommended Reading for Economics (February 2012)

Here is my regularly revised and updated selection of thirty books designed to enhance and enrich your understanding and enjoyment of Economics perhaps as part of an application process for university. I try to ensure that no author appears more than once; some books are due for publication later this spring and summer. Inevitably I have had to leave out many very good books but I stick to my thirty limit! I hope that you enjoy some of them!

Here is my selection of books for students keen to show a commitment to independent thought and active learning.

1. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism (Ha-Joon Chang), ISBN: 1846143284
2. Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure (Tim Harford) ISBN: 1408701529
3. An Optimist’s Tour of the Future (Mark Stevenson) ISBN: 1846683564
4. Animal Spirits (Akerlof and Shiller) ISBN: 978-0-691-14233-3
5. Art of Strategy (Dixit and Nalebuff) ISBN: 978-0-393-06243-4 – especially good for Game Theory
6. Civilization: The West and the Rest (Niall Ferguson) ISBN: 1846142733
7. Crisis Economics (Nouriel Roubini) ISBN: 978-1-846-14287-1
8. Development as Freedom: (Amartya Sen): ISBN: 0192893300
9. Drunkard’s Walk (Leonard Mlodinow) ISBN: 0713999225
10. Economics after the Crisis (Adair Turner): ISBN: 026201744X (forthcoming in 2012)
11. Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future: (Ian Goldin et al) ISBN: 0691145725
12. How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities (John Cassidy) ISBN: 1846143004
13. Imagine, How Creativity Works (Jonah Lehrer) ISBN: 184767786X
14. Keynes – the Return of the Master (Skidelsky) ISBN: 184614258X
15. Made in Britain: How the nation earns its living: (Evan Davis) ISBN: 0349123780
16. Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World Order (Philip Coggan) ISBN: 1846145104
17. Poor Economics: Rethinking Ways to Fight Global Poverty (Banerjee & Duflo) ISBN: 9781586487980
18. Positive Linking – Networks and Nudges (Paul Ormerod) ISBN: 0571279201 (forthcoming in 2012)
19. Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter & Creative Destruction (TK McCraw) ISBN: 0674025237
20. Super Co-operators, Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour (Nowak) ISBN: 9781847673367
21. The Big Questions: Tackling Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics & Physics (Stephen Landsburg) ISBN: 143914821X
22. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (Michael Lewis) ISBN: 1846142571
23. The Economics of Enough: (Diane Coyle) ISBN: 0691145180
24. The Idea of Justice (Amartya Sen): ISBN: 0141037857
25. The Plundered Planet: How to Reconcile Prosperity with Nature (Paul Collier) ISBN: 1846142237
26. The Upside of Irrationality (Dan Ariely) ISBN: 978-0-00-735476-4
27. Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow (Daniel Kahneman) ISBN: 1846140552
28. Triumph of the City (Edward Glaeser) ISBN: 0230709389
29. Where Good Ideas Come From: Natural History of Innovation (Steven Johnson), ISBN: 184614051X
30. Worldly Philosophers: Lives, Times, and Ideas of Great Economic Thinkers (Heilbroner) ISBN: 0140290060

Reading list last updated Monday, February 06, 2012

The Enlightenment Economics blog written by Diane Coyle is excellent for keeping up to speed with the flow of new economics books that are being published at the moment: