The Public Wealth of Nations: How Management of Public Assets Can Boost or Bust Economic Growth

Dag Detter and Stefan Fölster

Governments have trillions of dollars in assets, from companies to forests, but they are often poorly managed. Two investment experts explain how things could be improved by ring-fencing assets from political meddling in independent holding companies. Professional managers could sweat them as if they were privately owned.

Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance

John Kay

If the world is to avoid future banking collapses, or at least limit their economic impact, people need to think clearly about what the finance sector is for. This book does the job.

Inequality: What Can Be Done?

Anthony Atkinson

A crunchy book that analyses policy discussions in detail but avoids dullness, thanks to its unapologetic support for robust government intervention.

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics

Richard Thaler

Why people don't behave the way economic models predict lies at the heart of this brilliant intellectual history by the founder of this once-obscure blend of psychology and economics.

Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

Dani Rodrik

Economists still have a lot of explaining to do. Dani Rodrik reassures those outside the profession of the helpfulness of economists, and also removes some of the wishful thinking from his colleagues.

Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup

Andrew Zimbalist

Any country thinking of hosting an international sporting jamboree should read this book to see what a bad deal the IOC and FIFA seek to foist on them. Hamburg has just voted against bidding for the 2024 Olympic games. Clever move.

Culture, society and travel：The Road to Character

David Brooks

The author, a columnist for the New York Times, clearly thinks people are too full of themselves. A thoughtful polemic on why the self-regarding Facebook generation should move from narcissism to thoughtfulness. They'd be much happier.

Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Why organisations will have to change radically to make work-life balance a reality, by a respected foreign-policy expert who left her high-octane government job to spend more time with her two teenage sons. A rational, well-argued call to arms. Move over Sheryl Sandberg.

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

In a homage to James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time", a father writes a warning letter to his teenage son about growing up black.

Schubert's Winter Journey: An Anatomy of an Obsession

Ian Bostridge

One of Britain's foremost tenors, Ian Bostridge has performed Schubert's "Winterreise" more than 100 times. He knows every last nuance of the work and his book offers many fresh insights that will inform the enjoyment of both old admirers and newcomers to the music.

Plucked: A History of Hair Removal

Rebecca Herzig

Most of Earth's mammals possess luxuriant fur. Only one seeks to remove it. A curious account of hair-erasing, and why people have tried clamshell razors, lasers, lye depilatories, tweezers, waxes, threading and electrolysis to try and free themselves from hairiness.

Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio

Misha Glenny

How Antonio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, better known as Nem of Rocinha, became a drug-dealer after his daughter was diagnosed with a rare disease and he needed the cash -- and how he eventually took over an entire Brazilian shantytown.