This is definitely an era of popular economics books. I've recently been invited to take part in two discussions of the phenomenon: a whole symposium on economics made fun, at Erasmus University in Rotterdam in December, and at the Annual Meetings of the American Economics Association a month later.
Needless to say, I'd put my own books at the top of any pop-econ reading list. There's a revised edition of The Soulful Science and my earlier books (The Weightless World and Sex, Drugs and Economics) can be found on my website.
Ahead of me in the bestseller stakes, and by quite some distance, are of course Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics by Levitt and Dubner (in my view the latter book is much better), and by the wonderful Tim Harford The Undercover Economist and its sequel The Logic of Life. Other titles in the general category would include Tyler Cowen's Discover Your Inner Economist, Steve Landsburg's More Sex is Safer Sex, and Robert Frank's Economic Naturalist. Somewhat different are the books through which an economist makes accessible a specialist area of work. Robert Shiller's Irrational Exuberance is a prime example.
Which leads on naturally to the behavioural economics sub-genre, currently growing fast and delighting everybody in the policy world who thinks this approach gives them the answer to getting the pesky people to respond to policies as they're supposed to. Leaders in this field are Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational and Thaler and Sunstein's Nudge.
The financial crisis has brought its own literature. From the economists come Stephen King's Losing Control, Philippe Legrain's Aftershock, Raghuram Rajan's Faultlines, newest addition Capitalism 4.0 by Anatole Kaletsky and, at a slightly aslant angle, John Kay's Obliquity.
There have always been popularisers of course. Keynes was prominent amongst them, and J K Galbraith. My favourite classic is Thomas Schelling's Micromotives and Macrobehaviour. But given the growing demand for understanding in a time of uncertainty, economists are definitely expanding the supply of accessible economics books now.
Other suggestions for the list are welcome!
D ~ With all due respect there is not a single book among those you mention that is in the same league as Schelling. Not only is Micromotives & Macrobehavior three decades old, it actually had something original (as opposed to clever) to say.
Fair comment up to a point – Bob Shiller also has something new serious to say in Irrational Exuberance, and some would put Keynes, in his popularising heyday, in the category of original. However, I certainly accept the point that there's a difference between books of 'Micromotives' stature and the journalistic end of the spectrum.
I would add an earlier Lansburg book “The Armchair Economist”. My copy has an edition date of 1993.
There is also a “heavier” but still accessible book on how prices are set or developed by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian “Information Rules” (1998) that addresses some of the questions of pricing Ariely raises.
Although the following may not be considered “pop economics”, many consider economsts should have something to say about financial markets and how to make sense of them
In this field, the late Peter Bernstein's works are all good but I especially like “Capital Ideas” (1992) and nobody should make a single investment before reading Burton G Malkiel's” Random Walk Down Wall Street” – no matter the edition.
If you want a personal and philosphical view of how money affects societies and our psyche, also try Eric Lonergan's short book “Money” (2009) published by Acumen.
Excellent, there are some here I don't know! I did read Information Rules when it was published, and it's excellent – although 12 years old, still full of fresh insight. There's a review of the Lonergan book coming up in the issue of the Business Economist out soon, by our own Dave Birch (@dgwbirch) – he really enjoyed it.