My Last Beach Read of the Summer

I recently read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. A friend called the novel to my attention because, on page 449, my favorite economics textbook makes a brief appearance. One of the characters, an economics professor, assigns the text in his introductory microeconomics course at the fictional Sterling College.

Picoult's book is about the events surrounding a school shooting, and it is most definitely a page turner. But I don't think the novelist quite manages to get inside the head of an economist. Here is a line from the book (page 130) about the econ prof:

Reaching for some chalk, Lewis began to print across the board, a long and lovely stream of numbers that calmed him inside.

She seems to think we are even nerdier than we are.