Staff Picks Book Reviews
Porchlight is a company filled with voracious readers—talented, creative individuals who know books, and who excel at moving them. Whenever we can, we like to do that by telling you about the books we’re reading.
-
Blog / Staff Picks
Kevin Kelly weighs in on Free
Book Review by Porchlight
The brilliant Kevin Kelly, author of Out of Control: The New Biolgy of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World and founder of Cool Tools, offered his take on Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price earlier this week. Somewhat coincidentally, Kevin Kelly is the author of a recent and popular ChangeThis manifesto entitled Better Than Free. And, though that title might suggest a momentous throwing down with Chris Anderson, Gladwell style, maybe even resorting to fisticuffs, it it no such thing.
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
International Best Sellers for June
Book Review by Porchlight
Yes, Spring has come and gone and now the lazy days of summer lie ahead. For some anyway. While many go on vacation (perhaps to a Six Flags for a new coaster ride or two) others are still reading away during the hot months of the year.
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
The Heart of Marketing: Book Review
Book Review by Porchlight
I just finished reading the book The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back by Judith Sherven, PhD & Jim Sniechowski, PhD. and I just thought it was what marketing books have needed for a long time. .
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
Why Read A Book, When An Article Might Do
Book Review by Porchlight
We got a note last week from a reader who was a little upset by a new product that Harvard Business Publishing recently put out. Titled "10 Must-Read Articles from HBR", the electronic-only download highlights many of the same authors (and seminal ideas) as we did in The 100 Best. You'll find Drucker, Christensen, Goleman, Kotter among others with the Harvard Business Review article (ie condensed versions) of The Effective Executive, Innovator's Dilemma, Emotional Intelligence, Leading Change and so on.
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
Geeks' Guide to World Domination
Book Review by Porchlight
This handy, little book that's coming out in March is worth checking into! Not just if you're a geek, or just into world domination - but also if you're into tons of information. Useful and not-so-useful.
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
Thaler & Sustein's Nudge: Now Available in Paperback
Book Review by Porchlight
Our friends at Penguin have picked up one of the great titles of last year, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, and are releasing it in paperback. . .
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
American Lion
Book Review by Porchlight
In recent days, months even, America has gotten the New Hope via a certain new political leader. But what has come to my attention - slowly at first - seems incredibly relevant and worth mentioning. About a month ago, right after the holiday season, I saw a documentary about Andrew Jackson.
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
Two from The 100
Book Review by Porchlight
Can't wait another day for The 100 Best Business Books of All Time? The following essay compares two of the books contained therein that couldn't be more different upon first inspection. Sloan's My Years With General Motors is a massive undertaking, containing excruciating details spanning many decades that dissect and explain almost every move he made with the company, while Watson's A Business and Its Beliefs is a quick and inspirational read.
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
Friedman v. Bhid - refereed by Heskett
Book Review by Porchlight
Jim Heskett, Harvard Professor and coauthor of the recently released (and heftily titled) Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage , posted a brief review of Amar Bhidé's Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World at Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge site yesterday. Bhidé takes a contrarian view to Thomas Friedman's World is Flat pronouncement. Summing up the book and its argument, Heskett asks: If one agrees with these hypotheses, what does this mean for investments in basic science on the part of any government?
Categories: staff-picks
-
Blog / Staff Picks
Two "How" career/life books that deserve a shout out
Book Review by Porchlight
There are two career/life-related books on my desk this morning: How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work by Megan Hustad and The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (now out in paperback) by Sonja Lyubomirsky. How to Be Useful is an antidote to the cynicism and naivete that Hustad believes have seeped into the veins of younger generations of workers, who have developed an attitude of fundamental resistance to all things "corporate" and "ambitious. " She explains that the book "aims to be a corrective to this strange, counterproductive loop of naivete and cynicism.
Categories: staff-picks, the-company