Arnold Kling tries to decide on what 10 books to assign for a first-year economics seminar:
- Animal Spirits by Akerlof and Shiller
- The Price of Everything by Russ Roberts
- The Wordly Philosophers, by Heilbroner. Also on Mankiw’s list.
- The Mind and the Market, by Jerry Muller. Another history of economic thought, more difficult than Heilbroner.
- A Random Walk Down Wall Street, by Burt Malkiel. Mankiw is also a Malkiel fan, although Malkiel does not make his list.
- The Power of Productivity, by William Lewis
- Poverty and Discrimination, by Kevin Lang
- Manias, Panics, and Crashes, by Charles Kindleberger
- Fool’s Gold, by Gillian Tett
- Farewell to Alms, by Gregory Clark
I’ve read shockingly few of those.