There was a time when I had read most of the Nobel prize candidates (and therefore a few winners) before they were awarded the prize. But that seems like a long time ago. Slowly I fell out of touch with literature but until today I had not realized how serious my fall from literature had become.

That I had not read the latest prizewinner in literature Herta Müller did not overly upset me. I had after all been falling out of literature for some time.

But now that I heard that that the economics prizewinners were Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson I was shocked. Not that they don’t deserve the prize – they really do. But what shocked me was that this is the first year I have books written by the economics winners in my bookshelf behind my desk (I have even cited their works) but I have never heard of the literature winner.

How sad.