Joan Baez Made Me Study Econ

Reason Contributing Editor Deirdre McCloskey steals the spotlight in an interesting NY Times story about using novels and literature to teach economics:

Professor McCloskey ? who says, I got into economics because of `Grapes of Wrath' and Joan Baez" ? prefers serious literature to the narrative textbooks. "I assign Dickens's `Hard Times,' which is awful as economics but creates interesting discussions," she said.

While I read and enjoyed one of the books mentioned in the piece--Russell Robert's The Choice--I'm not sure there's a drearier genre than (explicitly) didactic fiction.