You are what you read

Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution has a very interesting look at the top purchases by people in various fields.

The MIT list is, as you would expect, very geeky, with tech books and accounts of the exploits of MITians abounding (Pune readers, this is the Boston college I'm talking about here.) The George Mason University (that's where Prof. Cowen teaches) list is somewhat dissappointing, because there are two Dan Brown books but nothing remotely academic in the top ten. The US Federal Judiciary list is somewhat non-intellectual. The US Marine Corps list, though, contained a lot of books I would read (It also had a fat loss book at no. 6: I would have thought the USMC had little reason to worry about fat loss)

Unfortunately, Amazon.com doesn't show you lists less specific than "Country" for people outside the US, so this is the best we get. You should check out the MR article, though. It's good. You can see Amazon's purchase circles page here.