Last week, Bloomberg ran a list complied by James Pressley of the Top 50 Business Books published since January 2009. If you wanted to read about financial engineering, Wall Street, economic collapse, and pessimism, this is the perfect list for you.
A better list is required though; one that provides a more well rounded, positive view of what is possible in the world of business.
- The 1% Windfall by Rafi Mohammed – The nuts and bolts of pricing.
- The Anatomy of Buzz Revisted by Emanuel Rosen – revision of the classic manual on word of mouth marketing.
- The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar – if you know the jam story from Blink, you know Iyengar’s research on decision-making.
- The Back of The Napkin (Expanded Edition) by Dan Roam – pictures solve problems.
- Borrowing Brilliance by David Kord Murray – great take on innovation.
- Bursts by Albert-László Barabási – scientist’s take on how the world works
- Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur – beautifully designed book on how to think about business models.
- Change by Design by Tim Brown – IDEO CEO makes case for wider use of design in business
- The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gwande – New Yorker writer and practicing doctor says we should go back to making lists
- Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken – Anthropologist to corporate America says not knowing culture costs companies billions.
- Click by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman – The subtitle says it all “The Magic of Instant Connections”
- Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky – This prognostication makes clear the promise of online collaborations.
- The Design of Business by Roger Martin –
- Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh – Zappos CEO shares his philosophy.
- Different by Youngme Moon – a wonderfully different take on marketing.
- Drive by Dan Pink – Motivation comes from autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
- The Essential Bennis by Warren Bennis – a wonderful collection of his best writings.
- Fierce Leadership by Susan Scott – refreshing take on leadership
- Free by Chris Anderson – overview of the price of zeros and the effects that has.
- The Four Conversations by Jeffrey Ford and Laurie Ford – best book I have read on management in the last five years.
- Greater Than Yourself by Steve Farber – a fable about mentoring and a lot more.
- How The Mighty Fall by Jim Collins – The opposite of Good to Great.
- Ignore Everybody by Hugh Macleod – To use the author’s term, this is a cubicle grenade.
- Linchpin by Seth Godin – a book about art, gifts, and shipping.
- The Little Big Things by Tom Peters – classic Tom.
- Minding The Store edited by Robert Coles and Albert LaFarge – a great collection of fiction that takes place in the business setting.
- The New Rules of Marketing & PR (2nd Edition) by David Meerman Scott – The marketing manual for Web 2.0 .
- The Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison – Big Idea means Networking book
- The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton – the tit
le says it all. - The Predictioneer’s Game by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita – great book on decision-making
- Priceless by William Poundstone – another book on pricing, but driven by narrative and research.
- Rework by 37 Signals – the guys behind Basecamp share their philosophy.
- Rules of Thumb by Alan Webber – Founding editor of Fast Company shares what he has learned doing some amazing things.
- Seizing The White Space by Mark Johnson – Shows how to build entirely new business models.
- Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie – Just buy it, everyone else has.
- Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath – “How to Change When Change Is Hard.”
- Think Twice by Michael Mauboussin – Always interesting insights into how we make decisions.
- Trade-Off by Kevin Maney – Convenience versus fidelity, choose only one.
- The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics by Dona Wong – Wonderful book on how to better present your data.
- What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis – What makes Google different and interesting thought experiments on those applied to other industries.