Reading list for physics undergrad who'd like to cover the economics related to the hedge fund/ private equity field I have had  relatively little exposure to economics( nothing more than EC101) and would greatly appreciate help in answering the following questions: 


Which sections of economics are more or less very relevant related to the hedge fund/ private equity fields?
Which books would one recommend that would help one get a solid grasp(almost to the level of an economics undergraduate) of the sections in 1. ?


Thanks
Macroeconomics is the part of interest to fixed income hedge funds, and a secondary concern for other parts of finance. It is also the area with the greatest theoretical splits. I am in the post-Keynesian economics camp. Within post-Keynesian economics, I would list two books as a good starting point.

(I would guess that “mainstream” economists are in the majority for answering questions here. I would let them list what they view as the best introductions to macroeconomics; I have obvious theoretical reservations about the mainstream texts that I have read.)

The text Monetary Economics by Wynne Godley and Marc Lavoie is an introduction to stock-flow consistent modelling. It is aimed at undergraduates, and gives an overview of post-Keynesian economics from a mathematical perspective. The models themselves are simple, but a lot of key information is embedded in the text itself. It explains the post-Keynesian critiques of the theoretical mainstream. My background was in applied mathematics, and the treatment in Monetary Economics made the most sense to me; the mathematical conventions used by economists elsewhere are somewhat non-obvious to outsiders.

The next book is Stabilizing a Unstable Economy by Hyman Minsky. It’s more of a popular book than a textbook (largely non-mathematical), but it provides a readable introduction to Hyman Minsky’s views on the relationship between finance and the economy. The 2008 Financial Crisis was labelled a “Minsky Moment,” reflecting Minsky’s popularity among financial market commentators. Stabilizing an Unstable Economy may not be Minsky’s best book (collections of his articles might be better), but it offers the best overview.