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"The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy"
and "The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures" both by Richard Duncan
(Economics major and longtime econ book/paper reader here) I very much enjoyed The Cartoon Introduction to Economics as an introduction to microeconomic concepts: http://standupeconomist.com/cartoon-intro-microeconomics/ It's extremely readable and funny and covers most of the situations in real life where you can apply economic concepts to understand why something is the way it is. Understanding why countries and ec…
Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives by John Hull Principles of Corporate Finance by Richard Brealey, Stewart Myers, Franklin Allen Traders, Guns and Money: Knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives by Satyajit Das
Corporate Finance by Stephen Ross is another text. I'm not sure how it compares to Brealey.
Schumpeter - History of economic analysis
Adam Smith - Theory of Moral Sentiments
Kaynes - The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Marx - Capital
Benjamin Graham - The Intelligent Investor
Galbraith - The Affluent Society
Galbraith - The Great Crash
Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom
Nassim Taleb - Black Swan
Ron Suskind - Confidence Men
Scott Patterson - Dark Pools
If you want to delve into heterodox economics afterward, start with the following:
Hayek - Individualism and Economic Order
Mises - Human Action
Rothbard - Man, Economy, State
Road to Serfdom, by F.A. Hayek?
I think the essence of good economic thinking is understanding unintended consequences and reading the road to serfdom is a great way to really think about unintended consequences. Basically that well-meaning policies that have a side effect of centralizing power tend to do more harm than good.
Any summary of economics that introduces the core concepts will be great and serve its purpose.
There is no must-read books for economics (or almost any other field of study). Non-fiction economics books are meant to teach the reader something new. As Economics represents a set of ideas owned by no one individual, the best overview of economics will contain all of the important, integral ideas of the subject. Any summary of economics that introduces the core concepts will be great and serve its purpose.
I disagree that if someone wants a broad introduction that by picking up Samuelson or MWG will be able to figure out the field from first (mathematical) principles.
New Ideas from Dead Economists is a fantastic, broad introduction into the philosophy of economics that you appears interested in.
Works by Keynes, Smith, Marx, Robinson, Hayek, and Ricardo do a fantastic job laying the groundwork for modern economic theory.
If you're looking for the quantitative side of economics, Mostly Harmless Econometrics, Freakonomics, and (on the very theoretical side) Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics are must reads.
Capital by Picketty is currently being debated, as the underlying evidence towards his theories are compelling but not necessarily testable.
Game theory is also a fun field within economics, and has overlap in CS and (occasionally) statistics.