Books
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The core of a great business
28 JAN 2009 from the Financial Times | Read the full story»
It took a long time to work out what was wrong with this book [What Would Google Do?]. But near the end, Jeff Jarvis himself, in his agreeably open manner, comes close to pointing it out. He has got the wrong company. If you are going to write about which company others should mimic in business practices, marketing and general attitude, it is not Google. A far better example is Apple. (Subscription required)
Hat tip with many thanks: Stephen Garner
Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab
Companies that charge writers to publish are growing while many mainstream publishers are losing ground. (Subscription required)The First Five Books for Those New To Business
[T]he best business books relate stories and through those stories the experiences of others. The good ones also provide context, putting the pieces together in a different way or providing narrative that helps us see the things we already know in a new light. The five books below provide wisdom for those starting their careers in business. They may also be a good reminder for the rest of us...What Should I Do with My Life, Now?
Author Po Bronson addresses the current economic crisis, in this follow-up to his book and Fast Company article, "What Should I Do With My Life?"Creative Capitalism
A new book takes on Bill Gates’s idea that corporations should do more to help solve society’s problems, writes Leslie Lenkowsky in the Wall Street Journal (1/2/09). The book, “Creative Capitalism,” is actually an edited collection of blog posts by “a distinguished group of economists, journalists and executives of nonprofit organizations,”...Barbarians Redux
29 DEC 2008 from BusinessWeek Online | Read the full story»
Barbarians at the Gate authors John Helyar and Bryan Burrough discuss how the financial world has changed since the 1988 RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout that shook Wall Street. (Video
)
How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint - a great little book
One of my favorite stocking stuffers this holiday season was How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: 365 Simple Ways to Save Energy, Resources, and Money by Joanna Yarrow. This colorful little book, made of recycled products and printed with vegetable oil ink, offers tips for making easy behavioral and purchasing changes to reduce your carbon footprint and save money and energy at the same time.Health Books You'll Want to Read
24 DEC 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»
[T]he best books that came across my desk in 2008 were those that illuminated the experience of being ill in America today, from the perspective of both the patient and the doctor, and an easy-to-understand guide to the workings of the human body. Also moving was a view from the inside of a health-care system that, for all its flaws, continues to strive in the interests of patients.
The Most Dangerous Man in Publishing
06 DEC 2008 from Newsweek | Read the full story»
Barney Rosset, the man who brought Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' and Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer' to America, loves great literature. More than that, he loves a good fight.
The Best Business Books of 2008
04 DEC 2008 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»
Juicy reads on the financial crisis, Chinese migration, the secret of Bill Gates' success, decision-making, gridlocked economies, and more.
Hat tip: BizBookReview
To Publish Without Perishing (Clay Shirky)
In the same way the internet has forced newspapers into a 'news vs. paper' moment, the publishing world is in a 'readers vs. book lovers' moment. In this environment, the single most important choice anyone in publishing has to make is this: "How many generations do I want to be in business?" Because hawking Ye Olde Codices to aging connoisseurs is a one-generation business.How to Publish Without Perishing
29 NOV 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
Even in the digital age, books have a chance for new life: as a physical object, and as an idea, and as a set of literary forms. (Subscription required)
The Best Business Books of 2008
The titles that follow run the gamut of what Fast Company covers: Innovation, creativity, design, sustainability, technology, advertising and marketing, global business, and entertainment. The theme running through them is that new ideas are the lifeblood of business, and the process of finding and sharing new ideas is essential to success.Annie Leibovitz's new book, At Work
The purpose of this book, she said, was to let young photographers find out about photography, and to explain the stories behind the many amazing photographs she's taken in her 40+ year career as a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. I wasn't expecting to be interested in the text of the book (and it is mostly text, not photos) but I found it to be immensely readable. At Work is not only a gossip lover's delight (she tells fun stories about all the famous people she'd photographed, like Hunter S. Thompson, The Rolling Stones, Queen Elizabeth, and Al Sharpton), its also an inspiration for anyone who does creative work and wants to continuously challenge themselves to become better at their craft.
Filed under Books
Customer Wrongs
Twenty-one writers — including "two comedians, a musician and a poet" — contribute essays to The Customer Is Always Wrong, edited by Jeff Martin and reviewed by Mark Lasswell in the Wall Street Journal (11/12/08). All of these writers have worked at retail, and nearly all of them "considered the work an ordeal." Michael Beaumier, for instance, a regular on NPR’s "This American Life," said his job in the "home section of a department store" was depressing because he had nowhere near the star-power of the kitchenware.Jack Covert Selects - Call Me Ted
Ted Turner has written a book that, I believe, other autobiographies will be compared to in the future in terms of his honesty and candor. I read this book cover to cover, spontaneously shared sections I found particularly intriguing with others in the office, and recommend it highly.Vanguard's John Bogle Says 'Enough'
01 NOV 2008 from NPR | Read the full story»
The founder and former CEO of The Vanguard Group shares his views on executive compensation, Wall Street and the financial system as a whole. His thoughts on the importance of ethical, moral and spiritual values are in his new book, Enough: The True Measure of Money, Business and Life. (Audio)
Stupid decisions that sink businesses
If recent business disasters prove anything, it's that some people never learn. Kai Ryssdal talks with the authors of "Billion Dollar Lessons," a book on how the same mistakes caused 750 companies to fail.New Book Examines Your Brain on Technology
Technology is changing how we think–literally. According to a new book, iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, spending just a short time on the web alters our neural pathways.Librivox free audiobook library now has 365 days' worth of continuous listening material
"This past weekend, LibriVox reached an extraordinary milestone: our catalog now contains 365 days worth of free, public domain audiobooks."US Constitution in graphic novel form
Jonathan Hennessey and Aaron McConnell's The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation is a sweet, quick, thoroughgoing history of the US Constitution. I'm a Canadian and most of my grounding in US Constitutional law began with Schoolhouse Rock -- an engaging source to be sure, but sorely lacking in detail. Hennessey and McConnell do great work in picking up where Schoolhouse Rock ends, using a little sprinkling of humor and a lot of illustration to explain such abstractions as the three-fifths compromise, the electoral college, pocket vetos and other critical historical and contemporary elements of constitutional law. The section on the Bill of Rights is especially good in presenting the balanced case for each amendment, debunking the cheap talking-points on both sides of each right's debate...
You’re Rich. How to Stay That Way?
11 OCT 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
THE appeal of Money Wise (St. Martin's Press, $27.95), by A. Michael Lipper, doesn't come from his investment picks. He doesn't offer any.
It certainly is not provided by Mr. Lipper's counsel on which asset classes to buy. His position is this: It all depends. ...
"Never invest in something because it is fashionable."
Here come the numerati
Stephen Baker's new book, The Numerati, introduces some of the data miners and number crunchers who are leading efforts to probe the depths of the global data dump.Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria: Author One-to-One
07 SEP 2008 from Omnivoracious | Read the full story»
Zakaria: One of your chapters is called "Outgreening Al-Qaeda." Explain what you mean.
Friedman: The chapter is built around the green hawks in the Pentagon. They began with a marine general in Iraq, who basically cabled back one day and said, I need renewable power here. Things like solar energy. And the reaction of the Pentagon was, "Hey, general, you getting a little green out there? You're not going sissy on us are you? Too much sun?" And he basically said, "No, don't you guys get it? I have to provision outposts along the Syrian border. They are off the grid. They run on generators with diesel fuel. I have to truck diesel fuel from Kuwait to the Syrian border at $20 a gallon delivered cost. And that's if my trucks don't get blown up by insurgents along the way. If I had solar power, I wouldn't have to truck all this fuel. I could—this is my term, not his—‘outgreen' Al-Qaeda."
Anathem
"Intellectuals fret that the internet’s instant-answer machine may be making us dumber, as we learn to solve problems without applying long-term mental effort," writes Paul Boutin, in a Wall Street Journal review of "Anathem," a novel by Neal Stephenson (9/9/08). "The threat of digital dumb-down" is the premise of "Anathem," in which Neal offers "a deliciously nerdy alternative world, one populated by what he calls 'attention-surplus disorder'... an escapist fantasy for readers who miss the joys of studious immersion in math, science and philosophy." At 937 pages, "Anathem" clearly is medium as message.Launching on Twitter: Microblogged Novels
The Japanese phenomenon of writing and reading novels via cellphone has officially made their way to our shores–via Twitter.He Blurbed, She Blurbed
15 AUG 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
A new company recently emerged on the publishing scene, offering writers the chance to buy and sell book endorsements. Aimed at self-published authors, Blurbings LLC traffics in "blurbs," the often hyperbolic declamations on book covers alerting readers that they’re holding the greatest single work of literature since the Bible — or perhaps since "The Da Vinci Code." (Subscription required)
Hat tip: Freakonomics
Globe-Tripping Again With a Vagabond Scribbler
21 AUG 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
Like any conscientious traveler, Paul Theroux begins his latest voyage with a thorough round of inoculations. Travel, he's well aware, is "an elaborate bumming evasion, allowing us to call attention to ourselves with our conspicuous absence while we intrude upon other people's privacy." Travel writing is "a license to bore," "the lowest form of literary self-indulgence." Yes, yes, he knows: "It's much harder to stay at home and be polite to people and face things, but where's the book in that? Better the boastful charade of pretending to be an adventurer."
Woolly Bully
Pollster John Zogby rebadges the Millennial Generation as the First Global generation and warns, “If you can’t market successfully to this amazing crew, find another line of work,” reports Janet Maslin in the New York Times (8/11/08).Jack Covert Selects - How to Be Useful
Basic common sense and courtesy sometimes seem to be lacking in today's organizations. So what if someone had read (and re-read) all the important "success literature" of the past 100 years, put it together in one resource, and then modernized it for the contemporary business world? Megan Hustad has done just that with her new book, How to Be Useful, showing how to restore courtesy in your work and your organization, and move up in the world while doing so.Lessing Looks Back on Shadows and Parents
5 AUG 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
Doris Lessing once declared that "fiction makes a better job of the truth" than straightforward reminiscence, and while that might well be true of her celebrated and semi-autobiographical Martha Quest novels, it's an observation that doesn't apply at all to her latest book, "Alfred & Emily," an intriguing work that is half fiction, half memoir. The sketchy, insubstantial first half of the book imagines what her parents' lives might have been like if World War I had never occurred. The potent and harrowing second half recounts the real life story of her parents, and the incalculable ways in which the war fractured their dreams and psyches and left them stranded in the bush in Africa, eking out a meager existence on a tiny farm in Rhodesia.
The Gridlock Economy and The Age of Heretics - Reviewed
Since posting the book review roundup, some of the August issues of big business magazines have started trickling in. Two of them--Forbes and BusinessWeek--have wisely devoted full pages to a really outstanding book, with Forbes having an original article from...Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning author whose books chronicled the horrors of the Soviet gulag system, has died ...Books and bikes - one bookstore makes a difference
To go along with Kate's post on biking to work, check out what one book store is doing to reduce its ecological footprint: From Shelf Awareness, the book world's daily e-newsletter: Cool Idea of the Day: The Bicycle as Bookstore...Former MI5 director-general Stella Rimington on books about spies in Britain
26 JUL 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»
Web-Savvy Authors Reap Fame, Fortune
18 JUL 2008 from Forbes.com | Read the full story»
Elle Newmark ... is a former advertising professional whose real passion is writing. She went through four different agents in New York over four separate book projects but never really got where she wanted to go.
At 56, she said, "I don't have time for this anymore," and self-published her new book, a historical fiction tome, through print-on-demand provider iUniverse ...
The World is Flat Audiobook Giveaway
20 JUL 2008 from Thomas L. Friedman.com | Read the full story»
With the No. 1 bestseller The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman helped millions of readers see and understand globalization in a new way. Now you can have it for free.
Joe Nocera's Best Business Books Ever
Nocera favored the story and tale over the tactics and theory. We think you need to read a wide range of books to get the mental nutrition you need for a well-balanced business diet.Jack Covert Selects - Management Lesson From Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic has grown exponentially over the years, but has retained its human touch throughout. How has Mayo Clinic done it? Leonard Barry and Kent Seltman answer that question with this book.What to Say to a Porcupine
What to Say to a Porcupine is a book that contains twenty different tales all centering around customer service and it offers topics for group (or single) discussion at the end of each fable.What's Online: Why Some Succeed Wildly
A forthcoming book that examines how mega-success is achieved is already receiving much attention on the Web. (Subscription required)Neat organization at new NYC bookstore
Idlewild Books, a new travel bookstore in Manhattan with a terrific organizational scheme. It shelves guidebooks with travel literature related to that place. "So the Ireland section has a bunch of Ireland-related travel guides plus Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," Jess says.Book Examines Looming Pension Debts in America
Business journalist Roger Lowenstein talks about his new book, While America Aged, which looks at how corporations and governments came to make pension and health care obligations to workers — and what is happening as the bills come due. (Audio)
A Guided Tour of 'Your Brain'
Two neuroscientists have written a book for a general audience to debunk misconceptions about how the human brain works. The result is Welcome To Your Brain. (Audio)
Tool Kit: Small-Business Books That Break the Mold
Here are some books on small business that offer more than platitudes and unreachable goals. (Subscription required)Labor Pains
The outlook for the American worker: increasingly hostile. (Subscription required)Booksellers' Selections for Summer Afternoons
What better way to spend a summer afternoon — or a spring, fall or winter afternoon for that matter — than curled up with a good book? NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg asks three independent booksellers for their picks for the summer. (Audio)
How to read a business book
A lot of people read business books in just the same way. They cruise through the case studies or the insights or examples and imagine what it would be like to be that brilliant entrepreneur or that successful CEO or that great sales rep. A pleasant adventure. There’s a huge gap between most how-to books (cookbooks, gardening, magic, etc.) and business books, though. The gap is motivation.C.K. Prahalad: The New Age of Innovation
A new book from the Bottom of the Pyramid guru lays out the new landscape of business, driven by consumer co-creation and service customization.What is Wrong With Business Books?! - Part II - Todd S.
On the heals of my Fast Company news, I found a wonderful essay that berates business books. Yes, I said wonderful. An anonymous writer under the byline "Uncle Saul" wrote The Author's Dilemma - Why Most Business Books Suck for socialtech.com. The piece is clearly written by a book reader as it points the vast number of ways business books fail the entrepreneurs.First-Time Novelists Make a Splash on the Web
It's more and more common for debut novels to have elaborate homes on the Web, complete with blogs, chatrooms, videos and games. Often the sites are richly illustrated, almost cinematic. (Audio)
A Book Publisher's Manifesto
For all of you interested in what the future of publishing will look like, Sara Lloyd has begun posting her essay on the topic over at the digitalist...Jack Covert Selects - It's Our Ship
In his new book, Abrashoff returns to his experience on the Benfold, this time focusing solely on leadership lessons. He asserts that there are key skills a good leader needs to learn. He offers 8 of them, and each skill is represented in a chapter within the book.From Sweeper to Capitol Hill Staffer, 'Step By Step'
For six decades, Bertie Bowman has worked on Capitol Hill. He began as a 13-year-old sweeping the steps, and now he is the hearing scheduler for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In between, he forged friendships with some of the most prominent members of the Senate. Co-host Steve Inskeep talks to Bowman about those experiences, which he has recorded in a new memoir Step by Step. (Audio)
Dusting Off a Managing Tome
More than 30 years after Management's initial publication, a Peter Drucker protégé refreshes the landmark work.The bottom line? Lighten up a bit
In their new book, "The Levity Effect," Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher contend that having a sense of humor in the office can actually help the bottom line. They shared that view with Kai Ryssdal.Digging Inside Steve’s Brain
Lots have been written about Steve Jobs and Apple. Kahney’s book, though, runs the full gamut on sharing the business mindset that drives Jobs and drives Apple to succeed. You’ll learn insights into developing new products, designing the customer experience, fostering an innovation spirit, hiring top talent, and sharing passion to “… put a ding in the universe.”To the Rescue
16 APR 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»
When corporate executives sit down to write a book, the result is often a bland recitation of accomplishments, a few charmingly self-deprecating admissions of mistakes, and a handful of business formulas that might help you, the reader, achieve similar success. "The Turnaround Kid" is not one of those books.(Subscription required)
Hat tip: 800-CEO-READ
He Wrote 200,000 Books (but Computers Did Some of the Work)
A professor has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a given subject, turn them into books, printed on demand or delivered digitally. (Subscription required)Underground economy is booming
Best estimates are that about 15% to 20% of the world's economy happens off the books. Journalist Mischa Glenny takes a tour of the underground economy in his new book, "McMafia." He talks about it with Kai Ryssdal.Real World 2.0
In a new book, Here Comes Everybody, author and academic Clay Shirky argues the future is here; it's time to get on with it.Defending the business book genre
If the question is whether every best seller is worth reading, I'd respond without a doubt, no. If that were true, we (as a company) would not exist in the blogosphere. If the question is whether business books are worth reading, they are. Not every single one of them is worth reading. And finding the right one is not always easy. To stand on my pulpit here, that's what we endeavor to help with--finding the right business book for you. Please, don't be afraid of the business book aisle, many a title is worth a gander.Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90
British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke, author of more than 100 books, dies in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.Megacommunity: Where Governments, Organizations and People Work Together to Take on Issues
"The root cause of the challenges confronting these leaders is complexity: the growing density of linkages among people, organizations, and issues all across the world. Because people communicate so easily across national and organizational boundaries, the conventional managerial decision-making style--in which a boss exercises decision rights or delegates them to subordinates--is no longer adequate. Solutions require multi-organizational systems that are larger and more oriented to multilateral action than conventional cross-sector approaches are."Peace through business?
In his most recent book, "The War of the World," Harvard historian Niall Ferguson says economic instability leads to conflict but viable market economies can end it -- especially in the Middle East. He spoke with Kai Ryssdal.Memo to the CEO
Harvard Business Press has begun publishing a series of 100 page books called Memos to the CEO. The Publisher's Note from the beginning of the book sums them up perfectly.Career Advice from a Comic Book
FEB 21 2008 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»
What most Americans know of manga, those stylized Japanese comics, is that the stories are fantastical, edgy, and defiantly indifferent to most anyone past a certain age. Now, though, comes word that manga is starting to go all adult and practical on us: The first business comic book is on its way. It's called The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, and it's written by Daniel H. Pink, the author of two trend-setting books about the workplace, Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind.
As a nation, we must embrace innovation.
"If Orsen Welles and Peter Drucker were somehow to mate, the resulting progeny might resemble John Kao, a serial innovator."After the Boomers
Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow has a new book that outlines "the demographic differences between young adults today and his own generation," reports Naomi Schaefer Riley in The Wall Street Journal (1/18/08).Harvard Research to Be Free Online
Harvard University will soon begin posting research and articles produced by its faculty on the Internet for free.New Spanish Titles
8 FEB 2008 from 800-CEO-READ | Read the full story»
Many times throughout the year we get asked if books are ever available in other languages. Sometimes, as in audio, publishers are not in control of whether a title goes into another translation. It depends solely on other countries that will request it from them or if they can buy the rights to get it in their language.
Seemed Like a Good Idea Inc.
06 FEB 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»
Blue french fries. A colorless soda that tastes funny. A frozen soup-and-sandwich convenience food that turned out to be inconveniently labor intensive. These products not only failed in the marketplace, but did so predictably, at least in the eyes of Calvin L. Hodock, a marketing guru whose "Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things" is all about the many ways that innovation can go wrong. (Subscription required)
Hat tip: 800-CEO-READ blog
The Real Start of Something New
JAN 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»
Entrepreneurship is "a very common vocation," Mr. Shane writes. "Each year in the United States more people start a business than get married or have children. And as much as 40 percent of the US population will be self-employed for some part of their work life." What is the typical entrepreneur like? Does he fit our popular image of the go-getting jet-setter? Not so much.
Hat tip: 800-CEO-READ
Jack Covert Selects - Do the Right Thing
Parker tells us that "[t]he overriding lesson I learned doesn't involve a lot of management guru buzzwords and acronyms. It is the simplest of principles, which we learned from childhood: When in doubt, just do the right thing."Leadership: Lessons from a "Fat Smoker"
"We know what to do, we know why we should do it and we know how to do it. Yet most businesses and individuals don’t do what’s good for them." That conundrum is what David Maister calls the "fat smoker syndrome" and is the driving theme he explores his newest book (the aptly titled) Strategy and the Fat Smoker.Does Judgment Trump Experience?
The publication of a new book, Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, by Warren Bennis and Noel Tichy warrants attention if for no other reason than the range of experiences that they bring to the topic. The event coincides with an issue that has arisen in the U.S. presidential campaign, an issue of broad relevance: Does judgment trump experience?The Inside Advantage
An Inside Advantage is an unexploited strength in a company that can be used to spur growth. Bloom believes every company has one, and that the path to growth starts with identifying this unique strength and using it to strengthen the company and brand as a whole. He lays out a system for finding and using that Inside Advantage he calls The Growth Discovery Process, and that process has four steps--WHO, WHAT, HOW, and OWN IT!Venti Capitalists
A look at Starbucks as a corporate juggernaut. (Subscription required)Must-Watch Video: "Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price"
This is a video of Chris Anderson discussing his next book. Chris is the editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail. (Video
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Jack Covert Selects - Human Sigma
In Human Sigma, John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund paint a grim picture of business and the traps some companies fall into. Organizations create a world where computerized machines run everything and humans are expendable creatures that offer no contribution. The authors even call this sort of business practice "Terminator Management." Fleming and Asplund acknowledge that this is the extreme, but they caution that the business world is on its way to becoming a misguided, thoughtless, emotionless machine.Ways 'Authentic' Leaders Acquire Management Skills
Bill George, a former CEO and teacher at Harvard Business School, discusses his new book on developing what he calls an 'authentic' approach to leadership.Bloomberg suggests business books for gifts
We've been in Chicago for the past two days for our second annual Author Pow-wow. I'll write more on that soon. There's much to share.Freedom Just Ahead: The War Within the Civil War
In recently discovered texts, John Washington and Wallace Turnage recorded their lives as slaves and the bold bids for freedom that took them across Confederate lines and into the waiting arms of Union soldiers.The Opposable Mind
I've been reading the Opposable Mind by Roger Martin. We humans have long been distinguished from other animals by our opposable thumbs... Likewise, our opposable mind enables us to consider two separate ideas simultaneously. We can use the tension between and elements of these two ideas to create new possibilities. A process which Roger labels integrative thinking.Surprised by Opportunity
14 NOV 2007 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»
Mr. Duggan, who teaches strategy at Columbia Business School, argues that the commonplace formula has it backward. Instead of setting goals first, he says, it is better to watch for opportunities with large payoffs at low costs and only then set your goals. That is what innovators throughout history have done, as Mr. Duggan shows in a deliriously fast-paced tour of history. (Subscription required)
Hat tip: 800-CEO-READ
Six Steps for Reinvigorating America
Kanter believes America at the start of the 21st century has lost its way both as a beacon to the world and as a can-do nation.The Trouble with Asia's Tigers
29 OCT 2007 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»
Asia's economic ascendancy by turns awes and terrifies Western executives. Yet it's China and India that fascinate now—not the once-fabled Southeast Asian Tiger economies.
Hat tip: 800-CEO-READ
A Cookbook of One’s Own From the Internet
A new Web site, TasteBook.com, allows users to create hardcover cookbooks drawn from recipes in Condé Nast’s archive. (Subscription required)Save your money, forget school...Here is what business is
From The HP Way, is the best description of what "Business" is...Collective Wisdom: 'We Are Smarter Than Me'
When Barry Libert and Jon Spector set out to explore how social networking might help businesses, they allowed just about anyone with an idea to help write the book. Thousands of people contributed to We Are Smarter Than Me, which is about the wisdom of crowds.Are B-Schools a Blight on the Land?
05 NOV 2007 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»
Khurana's From Higher Aims to Hired Hands is an important and surprisingly disparaging look at business-school education in the U.S. from the late 19th century to the present.
Hat tip: 800-CEO-READ
Want to create change? Tell a story.
Change happens when people are inspired.'The Art of Woo': Selling Your Ideas to the Entire Organization, One Person at a Time
Using relationship-based, emotionally intelligent persuasion to secure both individual and organization-wide buy-in, everyone from CEOs and entrepreneurs to team leaders and mid-level managers can sell their ideas -- a skill that everyone needs to learn if they want to be effective in their organizations, the authors say.More Buzz Than Deals at Frankfurt Book Fair
In recent years, the fair has become more of a chance to schmooze and build buzz for deals down the road. (Subscription required)'Best-Seller' -- What Does It Mean to Be One?
The New York Times best-seller list used to be the gold standard of the publishing world. But these days, there is a proliferation of lists, and stores prominently display their own "best-sellers." So what does it mean to be a best-seller? (Audio)
10 Years of Free Agency, and Growing Fast
08 OCT 2007 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
It has been 10 years since Dan Pink wrote an article for Fast Company called "Free Agent Nation" that spawned his classic book by the same title. So it seems a fitting time to check in on the state of free agency since Mr. Pink started chronicling it. (Subscription required)
Best Books To Make Best Workplaces
Last week, The Wall Street Journal announced their Top Small Workplaces 2007 winners. The Journal asked the folks who run those places what books they would recommend to others trying to create first-class workplaces.Jack Covert Selects - Better
[Gawande's] new book, Better, is about the quest to improve the status quo, and in medicine, this translates directly into saved lives. Gawande suggests there are three aspects to the struggle to improve: diligence, doing it right and ingenuity.The FDA: What Will the Next 100 Years Bring?
The agency is responsible for the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs, biologics (biotech products derived from living sources such as cells), over-the-counter medicines, medical devices, cosmetics, nutritional supplements, and all food products, with the exception of meat and poultry. And the breadth of the work, not to mention the volume, is staggering.Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism
15 SEP 2007 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
One of the most influential business books ever written is a 1,200-page novel published 50 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1957. It is still drawing readers; it ranks 388th on Amazon.com’s best-seller list. ("Winning," by John F. Welch Jr., at a breezy 384 pages, is No. 1,431.) The book is "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand’s glorification of the right of individuals to live entirely for their own interest.
Super Crunchers
Ian Ayres thought "The End of Intuition" would be a great name for his new book — until he ran the numbers and saw that more people would buy a book called "Super Crunchers," reports The Economist (9/15/07).Everyone Talking About Greenspan Book
With the book slated to come out Monday, Alan Greenspan's book The Age of Turbulence is the latest to fall victim to impatience.Kilts
To hear Jim Kilts tell it, his M.O. in C.P.G. was all about Z.O.G., F.E., and T.I., suggests Kenneth Roman in a Wall Street Journal book review of "Doing What Matters" (9/5/07).Book Review: Law of the Blog
Law of the Blog sets out to cover a set of interlocking topics that are important to many web workers: how to navigate the increasingly-complex and muddled thicket of American online law without getting your pants sued off.Too much of a good thing?
For many Americans, capitalism equals democracy. But in his new book former Labor Secretary Robert Reich questions the appropriateness of that equation.Two New Fables Break-up Summer Bestsellers Club
After a summer of same-old, same-old on the Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller List, two new books appear this week signaling the start to the fall business book season.A Space for Us
03 SEP 2007 from the New York Times | Read the full story»
I’d jumped into the social-networking site after a fellow author told me I absolutely had to use MySpace to promote my forthcoming book... So here I was navigating though pages of Hello Kitty wallpaper and frat brothers wearing chicken heads. Supposedly, thousands of writers had migrated onto MySpace, but where were they? Eventually, through trial and error, I discovered the best way to find them: if you type the right word into the site’s search engine — say, "Foucault" or "Kafka" — you will tumble through the rabbit hole into MySpace’s literary scene. (Subscription required)
Shallow lesson of business books
27 AUG 2007 from the Financial Times | Read the full story»
The poolside is twice as pleasurable this year because swimming is so much more enjoyable. The credit goes to pioneers of new methods of swimming instruction, Steven Shaw and Terry Laughlin. In my experience, most swimming lessons are delivered by charming young Australians, excellent swimmers who have been at home in the water since they were young children. They regard those who flounder in the water with incomprehension. They say "watch me" as they vanish towards the other end of the pool. (Subscription required)
Publisher Tries 'American Idol'-Style Talent Hunt
An audience-driven online competition -- and a panel of expert judges -- picked two aspiring novelists from among 2,600 would-be literary lights. Now their books are coming to a Borders near you. (Audio)