Business & Investing Books

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

James C. Collins

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Strategy & Competition
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Leadership
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Management

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 686 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

Timothy Ferriss

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Business Life -> Motivation & Self-Improvement
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Job Hunting & Careers
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Success

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Total reviews: 692 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What do you do? Tim Ferriss has trouble answering the question. Depending on when you ask this
controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer:

“I race motorcycles in Europe.”
“I ski in the Andes.”
“I scuba dive in Panama.”
“I dance tango in Buenos Aires.”

He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the “deferred-life plan” and instead mastered the new currencies—time and mobility—to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now.

Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world. Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:

• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"
• What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income
• How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it’s beyond repair
• What automated cash-flow “muses” are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks
• How to cultivate selective ignorance—and create time—with a low-information diet
• What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are
• How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50–80% off
• How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office

You can have it all—really.

StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths

Tom Rath

Amazon Price: $11.97 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Gallup Press Amazon Marketplace: 93 new & used starting at $7.86

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Business Life -> Motivation & Self-Improvement
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Management

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Total reviews: 151 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

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DO YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO WHAT YOU DO BEST EVERY DAY?

Chances are, you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation, while StrengthsFinder helped millions to discover their top five talents.

In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more (see below for details). While you can read this book in one sitting, you'll use it as a reference for decades.

Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will change the way you look at yourself -- and the world around you -- forever.

AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY IN THE NEW & UPGRADED EDITION OF STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0
(using the unique access code included with each book)

* A new and upgraded edition of the StrengthsFinder assessment

* A personalized Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide for applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year

* A more customized version of your top five theme report

* 50 Ideas for Action (10 strategies for building on each of your top five themes)

* The more user-friendly StrengthsFinder 2.0 companion website, with a strengths community area, library of downloadable discussion guides and activities, a strengths screensaver, and a program for creating display cards of your top five themes

Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs

Craig Stull, Phil Myers, David Meerman Scott

Amazon Price: $18.45 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $10.00

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Marketing & Sales -> Marketing
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Marketing & Sales -> Sales & Selling

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Tuned In argues that the key to business success lies in understanding and connecting with what consumers and markets want most. Being tuned in to the needs of buyers, whether those needs are expressed outwardly or not, is the ultimate secret to creating and marketing products and services that people want to buy. For anyone who markets a product, service, or ideas in any business, industry, or organization, Tuned In delivers a simple six-step process for discovering real and deep insights into any market: finding unsolved problems, understanding buyer personas, quantifying impact, creating breakthrough experiences, articulating powerful ideas, and establishing sustainable connections. Tuned In shows readers how to stop guessing what consumers need and stop wasting time and money building, marketing, and selling solutions that the market doesn't value. This insightful book shows readers how to connect with their market in order to create products and services that truly resonate with people.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

David Allen

Amazon Price: $9.00 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon Marketplace: 131 new & used starting at $5.70

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Business Life -> Health & Stress
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Skills -> Time Management
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Mental Health

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 428 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow," "mind like water," and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance.

Not quite. Yes, Getting Things Done offers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-do's clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists--all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organized, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Company has dubbed "the personal productivity guru," suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech saber known as the cell phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)

As whole-life-organizing systems go, Allen's is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can't junk, The next step is to write down every unaccounted-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant "in-basket"

That's where the processing and prioritizing begin; in Allen's system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen's ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there's anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It's commonsense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment; Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belabored, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to soccer moms (who we all know are more organized than most CEOs to start with). --Timothy Murphy

The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition

Amazon Price: $22.17 List Price: $36.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Graduate Management Admission Council Amazon Marketplace: 121 new & used starting at $17.00

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Reference -> Education
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Education
Subjects -> Reference -> Education -> Test Guides - Graduate & Professional -> GMAT

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 126 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Absolutely must have this 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is some fantastic prep material. There are a few typos and there's some overlap between this book and the GMATPrep software. However, neither are showstoppers and I believe this is the only prep book with actual questions from previous tests so it doesn't get any more real than this.

Here's what I did to study for the test:

1. I took the first practice test from the GMATPrep software without any studying and got a 580.
2. I put much dedication into finishing this book and thoroughly understanding the answers. This took about two weeks (a couple of hours after work everyday and all weekend afternoons).
3. I had almost two weeks to go before the test so I took a week off from studying so I could get in a couple of days' work with the EZ Solutions Advanced Math book right before the test.
4. I took the second GMATPrep test a couple of days ago and scored a 700.
5. I took the real test today and got a 740.

In hindsight, I'm not sure the EZ book helped that much beyond getting my brain going again after the break but I am 100% sure that this OG plus the GMATPrep were mainly responsible for the jump from 580 to 740. Good luck!

Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny

Suze Orman

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Motivational
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Personal Finance -> Money Management for Women
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Success

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 258 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Money maven Suze Orman's latest book, Women & Money addresses the complicated (and often dysfunctional) relationship women have with personal finance. Orman's direct, non-condescending style is perfect for this subject matter--she begins with the premise that "Women can invest, save, and handle debt as well and skillfully as any man" and then tackles the important question--"So why don't they?" Designed to educate and inspire, Women & Money also offers a "Save Yourself Plan," a five-month program that "delivers genuine long-term financial security." Want to know more? Watch a video message from Suze below, and take a gander at the first chapter of Women & Money--you'll be "controlling your destiny" in no time. --Daphne Durham

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An Exclusive Video Message from Suze Orman

Watch the video

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Read the First Chapter of Women & Money

For Women Only

I never thought I'd write a book about money just for women. I never thought it was necessary. So then why am I doing just that in my eighth book? And why now? Let me explain. All my previous books were written with the belief that gender is not a factor on any level in mastering the nuts and bolts of smart financial management. Women can invest, save, and handle debt just as well and skillfully as any man. I still believe that--why would anyone think differently? So imagine my surprise when I learned that some of the people closest to me in my life were in the dark about their own finances. Clueless. Or, in some cases, willfully resisting doing what they knew needed to be done. I'm talking about smart, competent, accomplished women who present a face to the world that is pure confidence and capability. Do you mean to tell me that I, Suze Orman, who make my living solving the financial problems of total strangers, couldn't spot the trouble brewing so close to home? I don't think I'm blind; I just think that these women became very, very good at hiding their troubles from me.Why not? They had years of practice hiding them from themselves.

Read more from Chapter 1...

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Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

Amazon Price: $18.45 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: William Morrow Amazon Marketplace: 175 new & used starting at $13.28

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Econometrics
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture

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Total reviews: 1539 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Malcolm Gladwell

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Marketing & Sales -> Marketing
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Social Psychology & Interactions

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Total reviews: 920 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.

For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.

Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name. --Ron Hogan

The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life

John Assaraf, Murray Smith

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Small Business & Entrepreneurship -> Bookkeeping
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Spirituality -> Personal Transformation

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A key team member behind The Secret and his business partner offer the specific tools and mental strategies to help readers leap ahead in any career or business venture and achieve major financial success.

In this visionary work, New York Times bestselling author John Assaraf and business guru Murray Smith reinvent the business book for the twenty-first century. Two of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, they combine forces to bring their special insights and techniques together in a revolutionary guide for success in the modern business environment.

Assaraf and Smith know how to minimize risk and maximize success, and The Answer provides a framework for sharing their wisdom, experience, and skills with the millions of people who want to accomplish their own dreams in life. Using cutting-edge research into brain science and quantum physics, they show how readers can actually rewire their brains for success and create the kind of extraordinary lives they want. By teaching readers how to attract and use newly discovered "uncommon" senses to achieve business success, the authors demonstrate the beliefs, habits, thoughts, and actions that they have used to build eighteen multimillion-dollar companies.

Any reader who follows this step-by-step process to build his or her career will experience an enormous life transformation and reach an exceptional level of living.