Nomenclature and Thought Economics. A title needs to be unique to avoid the search-engine crash of discovering it corresponds with an obscure naked yoga cult in northern Kazakhstan. Vikas’s Thought Economics website was original from the start and its name serves as the first unique phrase in this entire project. You have chosen well.

As I am writing this, the United Kingdom is in lockdown. Previous to the pandemic, ‘lockdown’ was a description of cell-bound prisoners. ‘Lockdown’ enabled officers to search the cells, one by one, for contraband. Now we are in lockdown in our own homes, searching ourselves, one by one. Meanwhile, Covid-19 prowls across the globe with scant regard for boundaries and no respect for governments, for organizations, for us. The virus as terrorist, cloaked in invisibility, wreaks havoc wherever it is. We place ourselves indoors to protect ourselves, we wear masks – and we are faced, most of all, with ourselves. It is up to us. Our thoughts. Our economics.

Resilience is needed. Hope is needed. Family is needed. Business is needed. The arts are needed. Government is needed. Friends are needed. All are represented in this book. Their value appreciates with need. We see more clearly what is precious, that which should be maintained and that which must be jettisoned. ‘I hope that everyone could wake up in the morning and wonder what their purpose is. This is the main question of our existence!’ (Marina Abramović).

But there is a gift in lockdown, a gift to governments and societies of the world. We have experienced now what happens when we place the wellbeing of fellow humans above profit and war. Another advantage to lockdown is The Book as a source of solace. The paper book is regaining its rightful place in tandem with the screen. On the arrival of the internet two decades ago, the book faced its greatest challenge. Today, there are more words passing between more people than ever. It was at the beginning of this revolution that the Thought Economics blog came to fruition.

In this book, Vikas converses with some of the most inspiring minds on the planet. It is an intimate and expansive expedition into what happens when a good question is asked of a great mind. Page after page of cross-thinking and counterintuitive insight. Through his questions, Vikas draws the brightest minds into seven chapters. Here, for example, in Chapter 7, chess master Garry Kasparov talks about democracy:

More and more young people are getting interested in politics, and we should praise Trump for waking them up. Democracy is not something that is granted for ever. Ronald Reagan once said, ‘Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,’ and our democratic instruments have got rusty, as people assumed they would always work automatically.

So a Russian chess master quotes a past American president to describe what is happening in the world today. It reminds me of the dynamism in Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas, in which he encourages different sources of thought for the boardroom to stimulate innovative ideas. Likewise, this book is fizzing with ideas for the boardroom, and for you. There is an urgency to Thought Economics that perfectly matches our times. The chapter headings say it all.

I am proud to say that Vikas Shah is a friend. Oftentimes I would call him and he would say, ‘Can’t talk now, got an interview.’ A week or so later I’d receive the interview in my inbox. It could be a conversation with Arianna Huffington, or the world’s richest philanthropist, Melinda Gates. The list is jaw-dropping: Nobel prizewinners, record producers, global artists, particle physicists, prime ministers. ‘How do you get these incredible interviewees?’ I’d ask him. ‘I phone them,’ is his response. And then the penny drops. He gets incredible interviews because he’s an incredible guy.

If the art of the question is without question an art, then Vikas is Picasso. When a critic said to Picasso that he couldn’t paint a tree, it is alleged Picasso replied, ‘He’s right. I can’t paint a tree, but I can paint the feeling you have when you look at a tree.’ Vikas draws such detail from his interviewees. No stone is unturned. The prime minister answers a question next to the artist. The insights within the answers stay with you. And then there is the simple pleasure of hearing masters of their craft like filmmaker Paul Greengrass speak about why they make art:

There is a beauty to the collective experience of going to the cinema. The great David Lean used to say that when he was a boy, and went to the cinema, he looked at the beam of light coming down towards the screen as if it were the light coming through a cathedral window; it gave him a pious sensation – and there’s something to that. Cinema has a mystery, a magic.

I liken Thought Economics to the Paris Review. Read this book. Keep it for years. The wisdom in it will stay with you for life. Whether you are a CEO or the cleaner where the CEO works, there is something in here for you, something that could change your life, something that could encourage you to keep going in the direction you are going. There is no pretension here. The interviews are easy to read and, above all, nourishing. Right now, Thought Economics is a vital addition to our world.