After reading Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century late last year, I found myself wanting to read more economics. I'm not an economist, but as a social policy professional I need to know enough about economics to recognise when economists are having me on. If the economics gets too technical or includes too many equations it's right over my head, but if it's written in plain English I can usually understand it. In the last couple of months I've read two books written in the aftermath of the 2007 Global Financial Crisis - one about Australia and one about the USA. The first, published in 2011, is The Sweet Spot: How Australia made its own luck - and could now throw it all away by Peter Hartcher. Hartcher is not really an economist, he is a political journalist working for the Sydney Morning Herald. If you've read his columns you'll know that he is on the "dry" end of the Fairfax spectrum, but at least he doesn't work for Murdo
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson