It’s the time of year when I look back over the past 12 months of my reading and draw up a list of the 10 or so best from which to select the ultimate winner of the 2018 Enlightened Economist Prize. The rules are: any non-technical or accessible econ/business/tech book I read is eligible (it doesn’t have to have been published during the 12 months); my decision is final. The prize is the offer of an excellent celebratory lunch, for a living author, should the winner and I find ourselves in the same place.
This year’s longlist is long – I’ve read some wonderful books. In no particular order:
Exact Thinking in Demented Times – Karl Sigmund (my review here)
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The Attention Merchants – Tim Wu (my review here)
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No Ordinary Woman – Angela Penrose (my review here)
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Twitter and Tear Gas – Zeynep Tufekci (my review here)
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A University Education – David Willetts (my review here)
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Black Edge – Sheila Kolkhatar (my review here)
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How Growth Really Happens – Michael Best (this is sitting on my desk waiting for me to write it up)
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The Marshall Plan – Benn Steil (my review here)
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Republic of Beliefs – Kaushik Basu (my review here)
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Behemoth – Joshua Freeman (my review here)
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Factfulness – Hans Rosling (my review here)
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Unelected Power – Paul Tucker (my review here)
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The National Debt – Martin Slater (my review here)
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Deep Thinking – Gary Kasparov (my review here)
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Scale – Geoffrey West (I didn’t write on – it’s excellent pop science with a final chapter on cities)
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Cognitive Gadgets – Cecelia Heyes (my review here)
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Ingenious Pursuits – Lisa Jardine (I didn’t review this either – innovation in history, Mokyr-ish)
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The Book of Why – Judea Pearl (I haven’t yet written about it, am mulling it over as he’s very down on causal inference methods used in economics)
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The Rise and Fall of the British Nation – David Edgerton (my review here)
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The Community of Advantage – Robert Sugden (my review here)
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Accounting for Slavery – Caitlin Rosenthal (my review here)
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