Diane Coyle offers her recommendations. Pointer from Tyler Cowen. The comments are mine.

1. Paul Seabright, The Company of Strangers. I strongly recommend this one. Note that there is a revised edition out, or due out soon.
2. David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Can you believe I have never read it? It is right up my alley. My excuse is that I do not expect to learn anything new from it.
3. Paul Ormerod, Butterfly Economics. A commenter once suggested that Ormerod and I have a lot in common. But I’ve never read any of his books.
4. William Baumol, The Free Market Innovation Machine. Baumol is my perennial favorite for the Nobel Prize. As I recall, though, this book did not wow me.
5. Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind. Skip the movie. Read the book. Or, if you saw the movie, don’t assume that you don’t need to read the book.

I still like my review of Coyle’s book. I like the content of The Soulful Science much better than its tone. What grates on me is that she seems to go out of her way to be nice to other academic economists. I’m much more chip-on-the-shoulder.

Speaking of book recommendations, Eric Falkenstein recommends the one Nick and I wrote. Eric also seems chip-on-the-shoulder.

Finally, speaking of book reviews, I have a review of David Callahan’s book on health care policy in The Freeman.