I’ve been brooding about the depressing popularity of Jane Austen, so have decided to offer my own list of classics for economists and others who’re not part of the sentimental frocks-and-romance brigade. Here’s my Top 10 list (actually it’s 14+), in no special order. As ever, other suggestions welcome.

[amazon_link id=”0141441631″ target=”_blank” ]Nostromo[/amazon_link] (or virtually any other of his novels), Joseph Conrad: the heart of colonialism

[amazon_image id=”0140620281″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Nostromo (Penguin Popular Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0140447423″ target=”_blank” ]Germinal[/amazon_link], Emile Zola: the fuel of the Industrial Revolution – coal and human life

[amazon_image id=”1840226188″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Germinal (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”1853260932″ target=”_blank” ]North and South[/amazon_link] or [amazon_link id=”014043464X” target=”_blank” ]Mary Barton[/amazon_link], Mrs Gaskell: the social effects of industrialisation with a special eye on women. Mary Barton is set in my home city, Manchester.

[amazon_image id=”014043464X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0140455469″ target=”_blank” ]The Master and Margarita[/amazon_link], Mikhail Bulgakov: the murderous insanity of Soviet dictatorship – Professor Woland, Game Theorist? I’ve only just read this, having seen the truly, madly, deeply brilliant Theatre de Complicite staging earlier this year.

[amazon_image id=”014118373X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Master and Margarita (Penguin Modern Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0140449663″ target=”_blank” ]The Charterhouse of Palma[/amazon_link], Stendhal: pre-unification Italy and European politics

[amazon_link id=”0099512157″ target=”_blank” ]The Leopard[/amazon_link], Giuseppe de Lampedusa: The Risorgimento, and modernity.

[amazon_image id=”0099512157″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Leopard: Revised and with new material (Vintage Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”046087781X” target=”_blank” ]The Whirlpool[/amazon_link], George Gissing: in fact anything by Gissing – as he summed it up, “Not enough money,” in Britain’s newly industrialising cities

[amazon_link id=”0140230246″ target=”_blank” ]Middlemarch[/amazon_link], George Eliot (or again, pretty much anything by her): astute political and psychological analysis of 19th century social change. Bonnets and frocks without the saccharine.

[amazon_link id=”0140431497″ target=”_blank” ]Roxana[/amazon_link], Daniel Defoe: the economic status of women, by one of the unsung feminist heroes, who was also a famous economic journalist in his day. (Tim Harford, where is your first novel?)

[amazon_image id=”0199536740″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (Oxford World’s Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0099511436″ target=”_blank” ]We[/amazon_link], Yevgeny Zamyatin: collectivism, conformity – the dark side of the early 20th century. Another recent discovery, courtesy of Nick Reynolds.

[amazon_image id=”0140185852″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]We (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”1613824939″ target=”_blank” ]Les Miserables[/amazon_link], Victor Hugo: need I say anything? I even loved the recent musical movie version

[amazon_image id=”0140444300″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Les Miserables (Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”080324570X” target=”_blank” ]My Antonia[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”0486277852″ target=”_blank” ]O Pioneers[/amazon_link], Willa Cather: the harsh life of the American frontier, and the strength of women

[amazon_image id=”0395083656″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]O Pioneers![/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”009954153X” target=”_blank” ]The Great Gatsby[/amazon_link], F Scott Fitzgerald: the Roaring 20s in a glamorous nutshell. I haven’t yet seen the new Baz Luhrmann movie version.

[amazon_link id=”1849021791″ target=”_blank” ]The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists[/amazon_link], Robert Tressel: not the greatest literature but a novel that still speaks to working people struggling for money.

[amazon_image id=”184022682X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Wordsworth Classics)[/amazon_image]