For a lot of people economics can be a dry and uninteresting subject but it can be fascinating and practical for building models that can make a difference in living a better life.
Lifehack.org has a reference to a series of articles on economics by Arnold Kling topics "Fifty Essential Topics in Economics" that could be considered a course in economic concepts.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/fifty-essential-topics-on-economics.html
I particularly liked the article on calculations to determine if investing in a time share makes sense - not that I have ever been tempted to do so.
Freakonomics was a good book and
the blog has a series of interesting articles too.
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