Inspired by the recent 70th anniversary of Desert Island Discs, and by finishing Susan Hill’s delightful [amazon_link id=”1846682665″ target=”_blank” ]Howards End is on the Landing[/amazon_link], with a list of her 40 top desert island books, on this morning’s run with the dog I fell to reflecting about my Desert Island economics books. Difficult. Do you choose books that will take ages to read, to keep you going, or ones that bear re-reading, or classics, or books that cover a wide spread of material? Anyway, to kick of the parlour game, here are my eight choices. Hope everyone enjoys drawing up their own list!

1 [amazon_link id=”0198751729″ target=”_blank” ]A Treatise of Human Nature[/amazon_link] by David Hume. My founding text. Understanding the social choices we make by understanding our place in the natural and physical world.

[amazon_image id=”0140432442″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects (Penguin Classics)[/amazon_image]

2 [amazon_link id=”0691152640″ target=”_blank” ]This Time is Different[/amazon_link] by Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff. A history of debt crises, an instant classic and still relevant for our times (although not perhaps on an island cut off from the financial markets).

3 There has to be a good, chunky economic history but which one? Greg Clark’s [amazon_link id=”0691141282″ target=”_blank” ]A Farewell to Alms[/amazon_link]? Jared Diamond’s [amazon_link id=”0099302780″ target=”_blank” ]Guns, Germs and Steel[/amazon_link]? Joel Mokyr’s [amazon_link id=”0691120137″ target=”_blank” ]Gifts of Athena[/amazon_link]? [amazon_link id=”0691090106″ target=”_blank” ]The Great Divergence[/amazon_link] by Kenneth Pomeranz? Or [amazon_link id=”0349111669″ target=”_blank” ]The Wealth and Poverty of Nations[/amazon_link] by David Landes? I’ll choose later.

4 A biography of Keynes. Either Roy Harrod’s [amazon_link id=”B006KKQ7HO” target=”_blank” ]Life of John Maynard Keynes[/amazon_link] or the recent [amazon_link id=”0674057759″ target=”_blank” ]Capitalist Revolutionary[/amazon_link] by Roger Backhouse and Bradley Bateman. Hmm, another difficult choice.

[amazon_image id=”0674057759″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes[/amazon_image]

5 [amazon_link id=”1846141478″ target=”_blank” ]The Idea of Justice[/amazon_link] by Amartya Sen. Michael Sandel’s forthcoming book about the limits of markets, [amazon_link id=”184614471X” target=”_blank” ]What Money Can’t Buy[/amazon_link], might challenge it – we’ll see.

6 What to choose from the huge field of development economics? This field is moving rapidly but at present it would have to be Banerjee and Duflo’s [amazon_link id=”1586487981″ target=”_blank” ]Poor Economics[/amazon_link].

7 [amazon_link id=”0262012766″ target=”_blank” ]Lives of the Laureates[/amazon_link]. In which winners of the Nobel memorial prize explain their work and their motivations – there are several volumes, so maybe I can count them all as one book. Or [amazon_link id=”0691148422″ target=”_blank” ]Economics Evolving[/amazon_link] by Agnar Sandmo, a terrific history of economic thought. Another late packing choice to be made.

8. There’s a vast array of books on institutions and technology and growth. I’ll tentatively pick Oliver Williamson’s [amazon_link id=”068486374X” target=”_blank” ]The Economic Institutions of Capitalism[/amazon_link] for a thorough grounding.

I’ve had to omit all the terrific financial crisis books – maybe I can slip my old friend Andrew Lo’s fascinating and useful review (pdf) of 21 of these titles into my suitcase.