I have very little knowledge on even the most basics of economics, and I can’t really wrap my head around a lot of your newer writings when it comes to the Lannister Banks and such. I know it’s not at all ASOIAF related, but could you recommend books about economics, both historical and modern, for dummies like me?

I’m maybe the worst person to ask about this, because I picked up my knowledge about economics very randomly and completely outside of the context of a traditional economics course (my day job is the history of public policy). So mostly I know a lot about the history of economic theory as it applies to public policy. 

Some recommendations:

Graeber’s Debt: the First 5,000 Years is good on ancient stuff, bad on modern.

Polayni’s Great Transformation should be required for citizenship. 

Eichengreen’s great on monetary policy. So’s Greider on 70s and after. 

Skidelsky is great on Keynes if you don’t want to read the General Theory yourself. 

Yuval Yonay, Daniel Rogers, Nancy Cohen, Rosenof, and Richard Parker’s biography of Galbraith are excellent in helping to explain how economics got from Adam Smith to the 20th century.