Where did January go? Just as well it’s over, as the worst month of the year. Still, I have read a few things. So this is a quick catch up post.

Post Wall, Post Square by Kristina Spohr was recommended by someone on BlueSky and I had high hopes, thinking it would do for the world what Tony Judt’s magnificent Postwar had done for Europe – that is, extend the focal length so the reader can understand what things are going on at the same time. It failed this test as the inclusion of China (and any other part of the world) was minimal. The book is all about the end of the Cold War in Europe. But it was even so fascinating to read all the detail about the European events of 1989 -1992. And the concern of George Bush to keep the US at the centre of the emerging order reads as rather poignant now.

38 Londres Street by Philippe Sands, about the Pinochet arrest, is completely gripping – despite being about the international law regarding whether or not (former) heads of state can be arrested. Good to understand the legal context here, just in case.

I really liked The Happiness of Dogs by Mark Rowland. It’s actually a philosophy book and – as they all do – disappears up its own fundament from time to time. But it’s funny and readable, and makes the persausive argument that dogs are better existentialists than humans will ever be. To be read alongside At the Existentialist Cafe.

I reread a book I spotted on my shelf, How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind by a group of authors looking at different aspects of the spread of linear programming and ‘economic’ rationality in the US in the early cold war decades. Interesting indeed, but slightly overshadowed by now by Jill Lepore’s If Then and Elizabeth Popp Berman’s Thinking Like An Economist.

Otherwise, I read some Tom Stoppard plays Santa Claus had put in my Xmas stocking, and a new crime author, Vaseem Khan, Midnight At Malabar House – a female detective in post-independence Mumbai.

It’s always a difficult choice, selecting the winner of the annual Enlightened Economist prize. After pondering it for a few days, I’m going for Innovation in Real Places by Dan Breznitz: not everywhere can be like Silicon Valley, but that’s ok. There are other routes places can take, depending on where they are starting from.

An additional read is a recent article Prof Breznitz co-authored with Jane Gingrich in the Annual Review of Political Science, with some nice insights about the political economy of industrial policy.

I don’t know Prof Breznitz but if he comes across this and would like to take me up on the prize lunch at some point, it would be a pleasure to meet him.

It’s the time of year for the biggest prize of all….

I thought I hadn’t read as much in 2025 due to general busy-ness of the day job, but it turns out that was a misperception. Having gone through my notebooks, here is a rather long longlist for this year. A reminder of my rules – I read the book during the past 12 months, I liked it, and my view is final. The prize – I offer lunch to the author(s) if we happen to be in the same place.

The first group are selected from what I think of as books that dive into the detail of how things are – in order of my reading them:

There is Nothing for You Here – Fiona Hill (what it means for places to be ‘left behind’)

Challenger – Adam Higginbotham (all about organisation and incentives, in the context of the Challenger disaster)

From Beacon Fires to Fibre Broadband – Stephen Unger (communication technologies, how they work, how their markets evolved)

Greyhound – Joanna Pocock (the deterioration of social capital in US communities)

The second group are more closely related to my day job and research:

Innovation in Real Places – Dan Breznitz

The Means of Prediction – Maximilian Kasy

On Natural Capital – Partha Dasgupta

How Progress Ends – Carl Frey

Breakneck – Dan Wang

The Infinite Alphabet – Cesar Hidalgo.

There are also two bonus categories this year. One is older books I read again and my goodness do they stand the text of time:

Information Rules – Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian (seems to be out of print but 2nd hand copies around)

The Limits of Organization – Kenneth Arrow (I borrowed the Marshall Library copy)

And the other is neuroscience/cognitive science because I’m pondering how humans + AI take decisions:

The Experience Machine – Andy Clark

Being You – Anil Seth

There were several others bubbling under, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Final winner announced before 2026 is upon us.