Jack Covert Selects RSS
Minding the Store: Great Writing About Business From Tolstoy to Now edited by Robert Coles and Albert LaFarge, The New Press, 299 pages, $25. 95, Hardcover, August 2008, ISBN 9781595583550
Many of the best-selling business books of the last thirty years are not based on exemplar companies, Fortune 500 CEOs or academic breakthroughs. Instead, they are completely made up; stories fabricated to make a grand point about how business should be practiced.
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Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership by Steve Farber, Doubleday, 170 pages, $19. 95, Hardcover, March 2009, ISBN 9780385522618
Steve Farber is a master storyteller, and he uses this skill to teach us about business through his well-crafted tales. It's not uncommon these days to see business novels, fables or allegories, but what sets Farber's books apart from the rest are the vibrant characters he creates.
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The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, Pantheon Books, 320 Pages, $26. 00, Hardcover, June 2009, ISBN 9780375424441
In 2006 I reviewed a collection of essays about transportation called Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee. A long-distance trucker, a crew pushing a barge on the river, and lobsters making the trek across country all populate that fine book, one of my picks for best of that year.
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Inspire! : Why Customers Come Back by Jim Champy, FT Press, 192 Pages, $22. 99 Hardcover, April 2009, ISBN 9780131361881
Some of the most successful business books use the research method to find the standouts in business, and then dig into those organizations to see what makes them so successful.
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Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky, Penguin Books, 344 pages, $16. 00, Paperback, February 2009, ISBN 9780143114949
Everyone seems to have a vague idea of what sociology is. But a high school history class, or the course you took in college to cover some elective requirement, is about as far as we usually get in that understanding.
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