Self-help books aren’t my cup of tea, so I’ve only really paged through It’s [amazon_link id=”1250042038″ target=”_blank” ]Not About the Shark: How to Solve Unsolvable Problems[/amazon_link] by David Niven. The title comes from Steven Spielberg’s decision to make Jaws with very few shots of the shark, because the expensive mechanical shark he’d had built didn’t work. It turned out to be more menacing with an imagined shark. That’s the gist of the book – re-interpreting problems as a changed environment rather than an immovable object. There are some other nice anecdotes. It’s a quick, light plane or train read if you like this kind of book. I didn’t spot anything that really tells you how to exercise your imagination in Spielberg-style creative ways.

[amazon_image id=”1250042038″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]It’s Not about the Shark: How to Solve Unsolvable Problems[/amazon_image]

Chris Dillow over at Stumbling and Mumbling has responded to The Economist’s controversial list of the world’s most influential economists with a post saying complexity economics should be more influential. I agree with him. But he set me thinking about which other economists ought to have featured in the list.

One glaring feature of the ranking is the complete absence of women. It excludes current (but not former) central bankers, so Janet Yellen doesn’t feature. Nor does Christine Lagarde – a lawyer, true, but not all the people on the list are economists anyway. There are other highly influential women who surely ought to have featured, such as [amazon_link id=”1586487981″ target=”_blank” ]Esther Duflo[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0674035305″ target=”_blank” ]Claudia Goldin[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0857282522″ target=”_blank” ]Mariana Mazzucato[/amazon_link], doing work that has been much discussed in the publications and blogs I look at. It’s a very Anglo-American list too, as it is about the English language blogosphere.

[amazon_image id=”B0092I0M0Y” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Poor Economics A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Duflo, Esther ( Author ) ON Jun-09-2011, Hardback[/amazon_image]  [amazon_image id=”0674035305″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Race between Education and Technology[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0857282522″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (Anthem Other Canon Economics)[/amazon_image]

The other striking thing is that the list only contains two sub-disciplines, behavioural economics and macro. Important, but my goodness there is so much more to economics.

So my nomination for economists who ought to have been included are all those applied micro people working on public policy issues. They are often attached to institutes and work collaboratively. It only takes a quick glance at the research publications issued by the IFS, CMPO, CEP, CEPR, NIESR in the UK, or the NBER or TSE – or many, many other groups in many countries – to see what an impressive amount of empirical economic evidence is accumulating. I guess it isn’t so visible because it is dispersed among different questions – everything from my University of Manchester colleague Rachel Griffith‘s work on the causes of obesity to Marc Ivaldi on competition policy in the telecoms and technology sectors  to Costas Meghir and colleagues on the inter-generational returns to women’s education. Nor does it make the headlines often, as the public debate is so macro-dominated.

Which is a handy way of segueing into saying I am now on the roster of contributors to the FT’s new blog The Exchange, and have a post there today about how we should be thinking about infrastructure investment. I’ll be writing about applied micro and policy issues.

It’s the time of year when I try to flag up interesting-looking titles out in the next six months or so. There’s a feast of reading coming up. This post has been updated thanks to many suggestions from people on Twitter.

Starting with my own publisher, Princeton University Press, one imminent highlight is the 3rd and  expanded edition of Robert Shiller’s [amazon_link id=”0691166269″ target=”_blank” ]Irrational Exuberance[/amazon_link]. Ian Morris has another new book (how does he write so many?), [amazon_link id=”0691160392″ target=”_blank” ]Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuels: How human values evolve[/amazon_link]. I am *really* looking forward to reading Dirk Philipsen’s [amazon_link id=”0691166528″ target=”_blank” ]The Little Big Number: how GDP came to rule the world and what to do about it[/amazon_link]. Francois Bourgignon’s [amazon_link id=”069116052X” target=”_blank” ]The Globalization of Inequality[/amazon_link] is due in May, Cormac O Grada’s [amazon_link id=”0691165351″ target=”_blank” ]Eating People is Wrong[/amazon_link] in April. There’s also Gernot Wagner & Martin Weitzman’s forthcoming [amazon_link id=”0691159475″ target=”_blank” ]Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet[/amazon_link]. Outside economics, [amazon_link id=”0691161453″ target=”_blank” ]The Enlightenment[/amazon_link] by Vincenzo Ferrone and [amazon_link id=”0691150648″ target=”_blank” ]The Shape of the New: four big ideas and how they made the modern world[/amazon_link] by Scott Montgomery and Daniel Chirot look enticing. For professional reasons I’ll want to read the new edition of the Stiglitz and Atkinson [amazon_link id=”0691166412″ target=”_blank” ]Lectures on Public Economics[/amazon_link] that’s out in April. Outside my field but very timely, a second edition of Jordi Gali’s Monetary Policy, Inflation and the Business Cycle: An introduction to the New Keynesian framework.

[amazon_image id=”0691166528″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Little Big Number: How GDP Came to Rule the World and What to Do about It[/amazon_image]  [amazon_image id=”069116052X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Globalization of Inequality[/amazon_image]  [amazon_image id=”0691150648″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Made the Modern World[/amazon_image]

From MIT Press, Nick Stern has a follow-up to his big climate change report, in [amazon_link id=”0262029189″ target=”_blank” ]Why Are We Waiting? The logic, urgency and promise of tackling climate change[/amazon_link]. [amazon_link id=”0262028441″ target=”_blank” ]There is Measuring Happiness: The economics of well-being[/amazon_link] by Joachim Weimann, Andreas Knabe, and Ronnie Schöb. On crises, [amazon_link id=”026202859X” target=”_blank” ]Understanding Global Crises: An Emerging Paradigm[/amazon_link] by Assaf Razin; [amazon_link id=”0262028697″ target=”_blank” ]Systemic Risk, Crises, and Macroprudential Regulation[/amazon_link] by Xavier Freixas, Luc Laeven, and José-Luis Peydró. From the ever-interesting Vaclac Smil, [amazon_link id=”0262029146″ target=”_blank” ]Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses[/amazon_link]. Outside economics, I like the look of [amazon_link id=”0262028816″ target=”_blank” ]Atlas of Knowledge: Anyone Can Map[/amazon_link] by Katy Börner, and [amazon_link id=”0262029014″ target=”_blank” ]The Eternal Letter: Two Millennia of the Classical Roman Capital[/amazon_link] edited by Paul Shaw. There’s also a cultural history of the shipping container, [amazon_link id=”0262028573″ target=”_blank” ]The Container Principle: How a Box Changes the Way We Think[/amazon_link] by Alexander Klose (regular readers of this blog will know of my fetish for containers).

OUP is bringing us quite a lot of interesting titles on its forward list: [amazon_link id=”0199922624″ target=”_blank” ]The United States of Excess: Gluttony and the Dark Side of American Exceptionalism[/amazon_link] by Robert Paarlberg; [amazon_link id=”0199363862″ target=”_blank” ]Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age[/amazon_link] by Taylor Owen; [amazon_link id=”0198729626″ target=”_blank” ]Migration[/amazon_link] by Christian Dustmann; [amazon_link id=”0199351252″ target=”_blank” ]Everything in Its Place: Entrepreneurship and the Strategic Management of Cities, Regions, and States[/amazon_link] by David B. Audretsch; [amazon_link id=”0199381100″ target=”_blank” ]The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences[/amazon_link] by Brian Epstein; Choosing Not to Choose: [amazon_link id=”0190231696″ target=”_blank” ]Understanding the Value of Choice[/amazon_link] by Cass R. Sunstein; [amazon_link id=”0190204834″ target=”_blank” ]The Maze of Banking: History, Theory, Crisis [/amazon_link]by Gary B. Gorton; a book of essays [amazon_link id=”0198738188″ target=”_blank” ]Sunlight and Other Fears[/amazon_link] by Amartya Sen; and [amazon_link id=”0199392005″ target=”_blank” ]Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, The Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History[/amazon_link] by Barry Eichengreen.

[amazon_image id=”0199922624″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The United States of Excess: Gluttony and the Dark Side of American Exceptionalism[/amazon_image]

Two coming up from Yale University Press really interest me: Dieter Helm’s [amazon_link id=”0300210981″ target=”_blank” ]Natural Capital[/amazon_link]; and [amazon_link id=”0300213549″ target=”_blank” ]Hubris[/amazon_link] by Meghnad Desai, about what the crash has revealed about the state of economics.

Beyond the university presses, Norton is publishing Citizen Coke: The making of Coca Cola capitalism by Bartow Elmore, and [amazon_link id=”0393246809″ target=”_blank” ]Move: putting America’s infrastructure back in the lead[/amazon_link] by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In January the new edition of Burton Malkiel’s classic A Random Walk Down Wall Street is out. Unmissable will be Dani Rodrik’s Economics Rules: Rights and Wrongs of Dismal Science in the autumn.

[amazon_image id=”0393241122″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Citizen Coke – The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism[/amazon_image]

Cesar Hidalgo’s Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies from Penguin sounds unmissable too. I like the sound of Philip Roscoe’s [amazon_link id=”0241972728″ target=”_blank” ]A Richer Life: How Economics Can Change the Way We Think and Feel[/amazon_link]. Robert Skidelsky has compiled [amazon_link id=”1846148138″ target=”_blank” ]The Essential Keynes[/amazon_link]. James Rickard is predicting The Death of Money: The coming collapse of the international monetary system – the UK paperback edition of a US bestseller.

John Kay’s books are also must-reads. He has Other People’s Money – about redesigning the financial system for the people not for it’s own participants – out in September (Profile in the UK, Public Affairs in the US).

From Harper Collins, we will get [amazon_link id=”006224275X” target=”_blank” ]The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and Birth of the Communications Age[/amazon_link] by Scott Woolley, about RCA; and a bio of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance; and Data-ism by Steve Lohr, about Big Data.

Alvin Roth has a terrific-looking book out from Houghton Mifflin, Who Gets What – and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design. It’s due in June.

[amazon_image id=”0544291131″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Who Gets What — And Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design[/amazon_image]

From Routledge in January, Morten Jerven’s [amazon_link id=”1138842117″ target=”_blank” ]Measuring African Development: Past and Present[/amazon_link]. Zed Books is publishing in May his [amazon_link id=”1783601329″ target=”_blank” ]Africa: Why Economists Get It Wrong[/amazon_link].

Metro Books will be publishing in January [amazon_link id=”1782199950″ target=”_blank” ]The Secret Life of Money: Everyday Economics Explained[/amazon_link] by Daniel Davies and Tess Read. Peter Bylund has flagged up his intriguing-looking The Production Problem: A New Theory of the Firm, an Austrian perspective.

Picked up from the papers this weekend: Roberto Savaiano, [amazon_link id=”1846147697″ target=”_blank” ]Zero Zero Zero[/amazon_link] about the cocaine trade (Allen Lane, July); Post-capitalism: A Guide to Our Future (he hopes!) by Paul Mason, Penguin in August; and by Dominic Sandbrook, The Great British Dream Factory (Allen Lane in October) about the success of British popular culture – I’m hoping he covers its commercial success.

[amazon_image id=”1846147697″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Zero Zero Zero[/amazon_image]

Little Brown will publish Mervyn King’s Alchemy or Achilles’ Heel? Money and Banking in Modern Capitalism in the autumn; the press release says: “The book will argue that although reform of the banking system is needed, the present crisis is not one of banking alone, but of ideas. Assessing the proper role of money and the implications of the massive growth in banking, and giving his views on managing uncertainty, the power of markets, monetary unions and the role of central banks, this will be a landmark and important book about where we are now, and where we should go next.” Ben Bernanke is also due to publish a book about his time at the Fed.

Little Brown is also the publisher of Will Hutton’s [amazon_link id=”1408705311″ target=”_blank” ]How Good Can We Be[/amazon_link], due out in a couple of weeks.

[amazon_image id=”1408705311″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]How Good We Can Be: Ending the Mercenary Society and Building a Great Country[/amazon_image]

Basic is publishing Martin Ford’s The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of A Jobless Future in April.

[amazon_image id=”1480574724″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future[/amazon_image]

Finally, in my hands now, forthcoming from Icon Books, is It’s Not About the Shark: How to Solve Unsolvable Problems by David Niven. I’ll report back on whether it has the answer.

As always, if you’re a publisher and I’ve missed something exciting, let me know and I’ll update this!

Update: Gary Karz of Investor Home has sent me his list of books on the financial crisis – a really great resource, which includes upcoming titles as well.

It’s that time of year. Here they are, most-visited first.

1. Investment rats – massively visited, and massively followed up in many places.

2. Inequality, economics and politics – summary of a Piketty conference at the Bank of England

3. Capital and destiny – review of Thomas Piketty’s [amazon_link id=”B00I2WNYJW” target=”_blank” ]Capital in the 21st Century[/amazon_link]

4. Canada versus Minsky – review of [amazon_link id=”0691155240″ target=”_blank” ]Fragile by Design[/amazon_link]

5. Teaching economics

6. Not bowling alone – a review of [amazon_link id=”0300203772″ target=”_blank” ]Hard Times: The Divisive Toll of the Economic Slump[/amazon_link] (not [amazon_link id=”014143967X” target=”_blank” ]Hard Times[/amazon_link]!)

7. Economics books in 2014 – my annual preview of the catalogues for the year ahead. This year’s coming up soon!

8. The eclipse of capitalism – or maybe not – a review of [amazon_link id=”1137278463″ target=”_blank” ]The Zero Marginal Cost Society[/amazon_link] by Jeremy Rifkin

9. Festival of Economics – books associated with the Festival

10. Calling young economists who want to write – about the FT/McKinsey competition. I hope it had lots of entries.