It’s the time of year when I look back over 12 months of reading and select a top 10. This time I have two top 10s, one for the usual economics and business books – the prize contenders – and another 10 I liked a lot as a bonus for readers. The prize is a free lunch when the winner and I happen to be in the same place, and anything I read is eligible even if it was published earlier than 2023.

OK, here’s the longlist, alphabetically:

Power and Progress by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson – my review

Our Lives in their Portfolios by Brett Christophers – my review

Permacrisis by Gordon Brown, Mohamed El Erian and Mike Spence

Material World by Ed Conway – my review

Ravenous by Henry Dimbleby – my review

Pricing the Priceless by Paula DiPerna – my review

How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flvbjerg and Dan Gardner – my review

Seven Crashes by Harold James – my review

Follow the Money by Paul Johnson – my review

The Lazarus Heist by Geoff White – my review

And here’s the bonus list, which I’m going to label ‘These times’ – mainly technology and history, includes some fiction:

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

Journey to the Edge of Reason by Stephen Budiansky – my review

Reality+ by David Chalmers – my review

Parfit by David Edmonds – my review

Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein

Homelands by Timothy Garton Ash

The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut – my review

The Last Colony by Philippe Sands

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

The Philosopher of Palo Alto by John Tinnell – my review

Finally, I have to recommend as a seasonal gift for yourself or someone else my dear husdand Rory Cellan-Jones’s memoir Ruskin Park. I’m biased but it’s had rave reviews. It’s about him growing up with his single mum in a South London council flat and his amazing family story, about his mother’s love story and the barriers talented and ambitious women like her faced in the 1950s through the 70s, and about the BBC.