Fast Company's Best of 2008

Fast Company chose its business books of the year last week. David Lidsky wrote the copy, stating:

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.

And the books chosen were:

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures by Dan Roam, Portfolio (Jack Covert Selects)

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr, W.W. Norton

Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker, Random House (Jack Covert Selects)

Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming by Fred Krupp & Miriam Horn, W.W. Norton

Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns, Random House

IDEO Eyes Open Series: New York & London by Fred Dust and IDEO, Chronicle Books

The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company by David A. Price, Knopf (Jack Covert Selects)

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman & Rom Brafman, Doubleday (Jack Covert Selects)

The White Tiger: A Novel by Aravind Adiga, Simon & Schuster

X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking by Jeff Gordinier, Penguin Group

With a novel and a set of travel books, it looks like kind of a quirky list, but I find it intriguing. For example,writing of their pick of The White Tiger, they explain:

You could read 200 non-fiction books on India, its hypergrowth, and its impact on society and the world, and none will sear images and voices into your brain the way Adiga's Booker Prize-winning debut novel does. Its narrator, Balram Halwai, tells the story of his own bootstrapping rise from a poverty-stricken youth to entrepreneurial success in the country's high-tech sector.

Their explanation of the IDEO travel guides making a business book list is a bit more tenuous, but they are great books.