I have recently experienced a significant relaxation in my research budget constraint. To translate from economese, I have more money to spend (thanks, Brendan!), and one thing I plan to do is to add to my research library. As can be seen from my website my interests are very diverse and it’s not always easy to keep up. So I thought I’d ask for suggestions. They don’t have to be in economics. In fact recommendations for important books in other fields (particularly other social sciences) would be most welcome. But within economics, if there’s a really good book on endogenous growth theory and related topics, I’d be keen for a recommendation.

Although my budget constraint is not too tight at present, my time constraint is very tight, so reading has to provide consumption benefits as well as contributing to my work. Unless it’s absolutely essential, I’m not going to wade through anything that’s badly written, or printed in hard-to-read type on cheap paper.

One thing I’d particularly like to do is to update and extend my maths library, most of which dates back to my undergraduate days in the 1970s. Areas where I’d particularly like a good recommendation include number theory, differential geometry and algebraic topology. I’d also like suggestions for good books on analysis and general topology(currently I have Rudin Functional Analysis, Royden’s Real Analysis , Conway Functions of One Complex Variable Ash Real Analysis and Probability and Dugundji Topology, so I’m looking for something substantially new and improved). And if there are any hot new areas that have developed since the 1970s that I don’t know about, I’d like to find out.

Finally, of course, I’m always keen to have suggestions for new reading of any kind, even if it has no possible relevance to research. Hopefully readers of this blog will have an idea of what I might like.