Charles Wheelan's "Naked Economics"

With the dominant issue in the election being the economy, my nephew, who is a freshman in college, has decided that he wants to start studying economics in the spring semester. Wanting a slight head start, he asked me what books (not textbooks) he should read on his own this semester. (I of course scoffed at the idea of learning economics for the first time without a textbook, since I used textbooks in all my econ classes.) I asked an economist friend of mine if he knew of any non-textbook books that would give my nephew a decent grounding in economics, and he recommended Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, by Charles Wheelan. I had never read it, so I decided to read a chapter or two to see what it was like.

Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I ended up reading the whole thing in two days. It was fantastic. Wheelan has a superhuman ability to explain complicated economic concepts clearly and concisely, using entertaining hypotheticals and real-world examples. I felt like I was reading the 1990s Paul Krugman again. Remember Krugman's classic "baby-sitting co-op" column? Wheelan's book is like Krugman's baby-sitting co-op column times 100.

If a publisher doesn't give Wheelan a contract to write an introductory economics textbook, then there is no justice in the world.