SHORTLIST
Cover of Abundance

Abundance

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 5 of the year's most respected lists, including Financial Times, The Guardian, McKinsey & Company, for a Consensus Score of 77 out of 100.

Appears on these lists

Our take

AI-drafted

Klein and Thompson's target isn't conservative obstruction but liberalism's own machinery: the zoning boards, environmental review processes, and permitting rules that blue cities built to do good and that now block the housing, transit, and clean-energy projects those same cities need. It's a diagnosis book more than a solutions book, organized by policy domain rather than narrative, and critics have pressed exactly there — arguing it wants a leaner regulatory state alongside a more muscular one without reconciling the tension, and that it's gentler on the political interests (homeowners, incumbent developers) that benefit from scarcity than on the villains it names. The clarity of the framing is real; whether it adds up to a governing coalition is the open question reviewers keep returning to.

How the Consensus Score is calculated

Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.

SourceAuthorityRecencyAwardContribution
Financial Times0.930.851.10×0.87
The Guardian0.850.851.00×0.72
McKinsey & Company0.800.851.00×0.68
Bloomberg0.800.851.00×0.68
Bill Gates (Gates Notes)0.600.851.00×0.51
Weighted sum → Score3.4677

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Frequently asked

What lists is Abundance on?

Abundance appears on 5 lists in our 2026 corpus, including Financial Times, The Guardian, McKinsey & Company.

What is its Consensus Score?

Abundance has a Consensus Score of 77 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.