Marcos Moret
Collection of pieces written for the New Yorker - a broad range of interesting essays that provide an unusual angle on their subjects, which range from ketchup to criminology to contraception. At times Gladwell's style can be a bit long-winded (more evident in his earlier peices), but there are plenty of fascinating insights for those that persevere.
Written by the founders of 37 Signals (of Basecamp and Ruby on Rails fame), this reads well as a manifesto for setting up and running a small business. However, it's very light on real-world examples, and so overall feels lacking in rigour. Also, while I have no quibbles with the content, there's very little here that's new/fresh/enlightening for me personally.
Profoundly dull, this is a very reader-unfriendly book, if this is the best book available on the subject (as the reviews on Amazon suggest), then there's a big gap on the market waiting to be filled...
Crazy tale of greed, envy, politics, machismo, and more greed - the true story of the financial shark feeding-frenzy that was the LBO of RJR Nabisco in the '80s.
Brilliant insights into the way the world around us works - easy to read and eye-opening.
Excellent collection of bite-sized pieces on US companies including McDonalds, Disney, and Wal-Mart - full of useful and memorable business insights.
Brilliant, awesome, inspirational book on lean production (as pioneered by Toyota). If your work involves figuring out how do do things better, then you need to read this.
A pep talk with substance to back it all up. There weren't any revelations here for me, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.
Great overview - these interfaces are going to be ubiquitous in the near future (thanks to Siddhi Lizcano for the recommendation).
About the fact that people mix up the causality of success. Key take-out is to take the business books we read, and the management stars we idolise, with a hefty pinch of salt. Why? Because the methodology and rigour behind their recommendations for business success are full of holes. Fair enough. But this book is a litany of ailments, and aside from a few unconvincing pages at the end, doesn't come up with any cures or preventative measures. So I came away from it feeling distinctly ‘meh'...!
Full of timeless wisdom - I've rarely been more tempted to underline passages for future reference, or to read a book twice. Fascinating stuff...and should be a must-read for anyone serious about business and management.
This is a epic book (6 months, but I got there!)...don't go reading it expecting to get a particularly deep insight into how Buffet went about becoming the richest man on Earth. But it's a good story and, assuming it's not massaging his image too much, then it's consoling that such a decent bloke could make it all the way to the top.
A hefty project management bible that's taken me about a year to wade through. It's aligned with PMI's PMBOK, which is what you study to get Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification - which is the equivalent of PRINCE2 in the US.
Know your Malthusian Trap from your Invisible Hand? These are just two of the ‘ideas' covered within - it's really well written and easy to understand...highly recommended.
Does what it says on the tin - well worth reading, even if you've been paying close to the rise and rise of the company over the past ten or so years.
Bit dull to be honest! Too much detail on how they ran their experiments, not enough interesting insights or new ways of looking at things, for my liking. I enjoyed ‘Small World' (2003) by Mark Buchanan a lot more.
I did learn a few things from reading this, but overall it came across as a collection of recycled theories and models, a large portion of it feels dated, and overall it reminded me of one of those soulless text books from my university days!
This is a PROPER textbook - all 650 pages of it. Can't recommend it enough though - very well written (no bumf), well structured providing a fantastic run-through of all things operations management, full of interesting case studies and useful diagrams. If ever a textbook could be called ‘un-putdownable', this would be it!