Henry M. Paulson, former U.S. Treasury secretary and chairman of the Paulson Institute

Walter Isaacson’s latest book, The Innovators, weaves together dozens of stories of the innovators who contributed to the development of computers and the Internet. Some of the narratives are short vignettes -- others are mini biographies like the Bill Gates story -- but all thoroughly engaged me. The book’s magic is that it brings technology to life using simple and easy to understand language. It is a compelling account of the different qualities of innovators and the collaborative process of innovation -- that over-used word, which is the Holy Grail so many businesses and nations are pursuing.

Anat Admati, professor of finance and economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-author of The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It

Just when you thought that there can’t possibly be any more to say about the financial crisis, four excellent books came out in 2014 to expose, from different perspectives, the continued distortions in the financial system and the failure of policy makers to learn essential lessons and take the appropriate actions. The issues are important but often ignored or misunderstood.

Something is clearly wrong, and too little has changed in the U.S. housing market. In House of Debt, economists Atif Mian and Amir Sufi present compelling evidence that homeowners’ distress exacerbated and prolonged the recession. They are critical of U.S. policy makers who focused on saving banks while failing to relieve homeowners’ distress, and advocate reducing the reliance on debt (which is, counterproductively, encouraged and subsidized) in the financial system, including housing.

Another important book, Other People’s Houses: How Decades of Bailouts, Captive Regulators, and Toxic Bankers Made Home Mortgages a Thrilling Business by law scholar Jennifer Taub, traces specific homeowners, bankers, regulators and politicians in the last few decades to expose how bad housing policy, failed regulations and harsh bankruptcy laws have harmed Main Street homeowners while benefiting bankers.

We meet shocking recklessness in Shredded: The Rise and Fall of The Royal Bank of Scotland by Ian Fraser, which tells the story of RBS and especially of Fred Goodwin, its CEO from 2000 to 2008. The extent of greed and broken governance is fascinating and highly disturbing. The book raises critical questions about how and why RBS practices persisted and whether much if anything has changed to prevent such institutions from harming society. (Beware that the author falls into the pervasive language trap that falsely portrays “bank capital” as if it refers to banks’ “holdings” rather than to their funding mix or indebtedness.)

The themes of flawed policies and recklessness are also paramount in Martin Wolf’s The Shifts and the Shocks. Wolf offers an insightful and brutal analysis of the broad political and economic forces that have shaped the global economy in recent years, particularly in Europe.

Jason Furman, chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers

I spent more time thinking about Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Atif Mian and Amir Sufi’s House of Debt than any other economics books this past year. Both books add to our empirical understanding, challenge our prevailing assumptions and, both in their rightness and in their wrongness, have initiated important debates.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century got me to move beyond the traditional thinking about labor earnings inequality to better appreciate the role of capital income, including inherited wealth, in the large increase in inequality in recent decades.

House of Debt shifted the focus from bank lending to household indebtedness, powerfully advancing a novel interpretation of the causes and aftermath of the Great Recession.

Neither book is the last word, especially on policy prescriptions which often ranged from impractical to half-baked to just plain wrong. But both of them will help get us closer to the understanding and ideas that we need.

My favorite diversion was Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel, a retelling of Wuthering Heights set in postwar Japan. It had compelling characters, a unique mode of storytelling and an epic sweep.

Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co.

The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology by Jack Kornfield. It is very practical advice for practicing compassion in a difficult world. Jack Kornfield is an original thinker and a brilliant communicator.

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