Will Thomson, who organised the Scottish Festival of Economics, at which I spoke recently, has been chasing other presenters and me at that festival since then for a recommended book or books that he might share with the 600 or so people who were engaged with the festival over the three days over which it ran.

This did, I admit, present me with something of a dilemma. I am not a person who has favourites, nor am I someone who creates lists. An invitation to take part in Desert Island Discs would be my idea of a nightmare because of the issues it would raise in determining selection criteria for just eight pieces of music to be played. The same is pretty much true of books.

The reason there are cases full of books behind me when I make videos is that, over a period of 50 years, I have accumulated a lot of them and disposed of very few. Some, I admit, would never make it to any reading list that I would now prepare, but a great many could. As a result, I spent some time considering this request before sending my response to Will last night. This is what I had to say.

I actually want to suggest two books to you, neither of which is glaringly obvious.

The first is John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics by Richard Parker, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2005. The book is, of course, a biography of John Kenneth Galbraith, who I consider to be the second most important economist of the 20th century, after John Maynard Keynes. I chose the book rather than one of Galbraith's own because this mammoth biography explains Galbraith, his thinking, his impact, and his philosophy of action. I share his belief that a philosophy of action is much more important than technical finesse when it comes to economics, where far too much time is spent discussing the nuance of ideas and literature, and far too little on how solutions that might change the world for the better are created.

The second is The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen, which was dedicated to the memory of John Rawls and published by Allen Lane in 2009. Rawls massively influenced my thinking on the concept of justice, and Sen took that thinking further as one of the very few empathetic political economic philosophers. He as asked some of the most fundamental questions that few in political economy do, such as what does it mean to live well, what does it mean to avoid needless suffering, and what does it mean to be genuinely free in the context of everyday life. His emphasis was on what people are actually able to do and be, or what their capabilities are, and that is the question that I think MMT helps answer. When most of economics is shallow, evasive, and apparently devoid of ethics, Sen put fundamental and even existential questions at the centre of his economic thinking.

In this sense, Sen and Galbraith perfectly complement each other in their concern about the consequences of what we, as economists, do, and that is why I think they are so important.

Those choices surprise me. I stood and looked at my shelves, and these are what I came up with. I am not pretending that I could not have come up with something else. I am not suggesting that there are not other equally meaningful books on there, including some very good ones published more recently on themes often discussed here, which are well worth spending time on, but my choices last night were justified for the reasons I note, and I think they are significant.

But why share this here, and now? That is because we have also thought that a reading list might be of interest on this blog. James has been doing some preparatory work on this and has proposed ordering such a list under various headings, such as MMT, neoliberalism, politics, and so on, all of which make sense to me. Whether the list might be a separate page on the blog or a page in the glossary, which would make it easier to link to it more often, is an issue not yet resolved.

However, if you have a book that you think should be included in such a list, we are open to suggestions. Might you make these in the order of title, author, year of publication, publisher, and a link to the book, preferably on a site such as Bookshop.org or AbeBooks, together with a short note, maybe 50 to 100 words at most, as to why you think it is important? Please do so in the comments below. You are not restricted to one book, but please also do not get excessive. The selection process is important here. I will also apologise and say that I doubt I will be able to respond to all suggestions. Please do, then, accept my thanks in advance.

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