So I’m at the Barnes & Noble feeling snotty, drinking some tea from a company I’ve never heard of with a name that evokes images of an English countryside and I’m looking for…something.

That happens to me a lot. I’ll be in the bookstore and get this feeling the perfect book is there and it’s just waiting for me to find it. This is – in my mind – me wandering through the bookstore looking like an aimless idiot, but I can’t stop, because there are so many answers in a bookstore if only I knew where to look. 

But, and this doesn’t happen often, I look to the side and see a book called 30-Second Economics. Which is kind of weird because I’m pretty sure I can’t even say economics in thirty seconds if I’m not concentrating. I open the book to leaf through it and there are these super-abbreviated biographies of economists and descriptions of their major theories and the backbone of the theory. From what I can tell, there isn’t any bias except for leading questions that may give pause for thought.

Talk about having a book that makes you able to not sound like an idiot at a dinner party! (Ok, I don’t go to dinner parties and when I do no one else wants to talk about economics and until I can figure out how to get on the phone with Russ Roberts and just talk for a little bit I’m talking about fabulous, imaginary dinner parties where everyone is all up to date on economic theory and I can just wander the room and bask in the knowledge all around me.)

Back to reality, I know, I know, the book.

While a book like this can’t possibly cover all the pitfalls and points of every theory, it does a good job of giving you the basics. Enough that you will know what something is about, but you’re not going to have to use the left side of your brain a whole lot. (That’s the math half, right?)

There’s a glossary that covers fun and interesting words. It will, at the very least, let you read jargon-filled articles and without too much effort know what you’re reading.

If you want a coffee-table book or to make people think you’re really smart, it’s not a bad book to own. It’s even better if you actually read it.