What Would Google Do?
by Jeff Jarvis
Published 2009 by HarperBusiness

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061709715

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REVIEW:  Booklist

Jarvis, columnist and blogger about media, presents his ideas for surviving and prospering in the Internet age, with its new set of rules for emerging technologies as well as industries such as retail, manufacturing, and service. We learn that customers are now in charge, people anywhere can find each other and join forces to support a company s efforts or oppose them, life and business are more public, conversation has replaced marketing, and openness is the key to success. Jarvis other laws include being a platform (help users create products, businesses, communities, and networks of their own); hand over control to anyone; middlemen are doomed; and your worst customer is your best friend, and your best customer is your partner. Jarvis offers thought-provoking observations and valuable examples for individuals and businesses seeking to fully participate in our Internet culture and maximize the opportunities it offers. It is unclear what role Google played, if any, in the preparation of this book, which provides excellent advertising for the company.

Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America
by Julia Angwin
Published 2009 by Random House

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781400066940

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REVIEW:  Publishers Weekly

Angwin, an award-winning journalist for the "Wall Street Journal", recounts the history of MySpace.com in this well-written, entertaining and drama-filled chronicle. From its founding by Chris DeWolfe to its surprising purchase for nearly $600 million by Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp., Angwin takes the reader through the company's tumultuous journey to the top. Readers will learn how Eliot Spitzer's spyware lawsuit nearly devastated the company and how Richard Blumenthal's investigation into the site's lack of protection of minors resulted in a blindsiding public assault. An array of personalities populate the book, including Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, Bill O'Reilly and Tila Tequila, who was one of the earliest to use her popularity on the site to generate a successful business. Angwin also describes the massive defection of MySpace users to Facebook and leaves the reader to wrestle with the issue of digital identity. Attesting to the depth of her research, Angwin also includes a lengthy notes section. This engrossing look at how MySpace became a media powerhouse will find a solid audience of business history, technology and entrepreneurship readers.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You
by Jack Covert
Published 2009 by Portfolio

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781591842408

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REVIEW:  Booklist

Unbelievably, over 10,000 business books are published each year, creating a dizzying array of choices for the budding entrepreneur or executive manager seeking solutions. In some circles, the genre may have a reputation for being dull, but the best written have much to offer to a wider audience. A great business book can encompass inspirational writing, biography, engaging narratives, even mystery and suspense. Covert and Sattersten operate 800-CEO-READ, a specialty business-book retailer. Out of the countless business books they have read every year for a quarter century, they have culled 100 of the best and presented them in review format. Of course, you get the classics, like How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie (1936), and The HP Way, by David Packard (1995), but you also get the whimsical (Oh, the Places You ll Go, by Dr. Seuss, 1990); historical (Never Give In, speeches by Winston Churchill, 2003); artistic (The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp, 2003); and philosophical (The Monk and the Riddle, by Komisar and Lineback, 2000). This list and the fine reviews are proof positive that business books can offer a rich treasure of stories and inspiration. 
   

Catching the Wolf of Wall Street: More Incredible True Stories of Fortunes, Schemes, Parties, and Prison
by Jordan Belfort
Published 2009 by Bantam

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780553807042

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To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise
by Bethany Moreton
Published 2009 by Harvard University Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780674033221

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REVIEW:  Publishers Weekly

The world's largest corporation has grown to prominence in America's Sun Belt--the relatively recent seat of American radical agrarian populism and amid a feverish antagonism to corporate monopoly. In the spirit of Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?" historian Moreton unearths the roots of the seeming anomaly of corporate populism, in a timely and penetrating analysis that situates the rise of Wal-Mart in a postwar confluence of forces, from federal redistribution of capital favoring the rural South and West to the family values symbolized by Sam Walton's largely white, rural, female workforce (the basis of a new economic and ideological niche), the New Christian Right's powerful probusiness and countercultural movement of the 1970s and '80s and its harnessing of electoral power. Giving Max Weber's Protestant ethic something of a late-20th-century update, Moreton shows how this confluence wedded Christianity to the free market. Moreton's erudition and clear prose elucidate much in the area of recent labor and political history, while capturing the centrality of movement cultures in the evolving face of American populism.

The Wallstrip Edge: Using Trends to Make Money -- Find Them, Ride Them, and Get Off
by Howard Lindzon
Published 2009 by Business Plus

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780446508643

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Jacket Notes:

In THE WALLSTRIP EDGE, Howard Lindzon shows readers how to profit from his straightforward investment philosophy --a unique trend watching philosophy that makes Wallstrip.com such an amazing phenomenon, including how to look at trends from a different perspective, knowing when to buy a certain stock, how to hold it, and of course when to sell. It's all done using the power of the Internet and your own instincts. It's a surprisingly simple (and fun) strategy that works, and best of all, you don't need to be a financial genius to make it work for you. 

Enough.: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life
by John C Bogle
Published 2008 by John Wiley & Sons

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780470398517

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Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy
by Dean Baker
Published 2009 by Polipoint Press

Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780981576992

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Jacket Notes:

For the second time this decade, the US economy is sinking into a recession due to the collapse of a financial bubble. The most recent calamity is likely to produce a downturn deeper and longer than the stock market crash of 2001. Dean Baker argues not only that competent economists should have recognized the developing housing bubble, but also that policy makers and the media cheerfully neglected those economists who did predict danger. Baker doesn't engage in 20-20 hindsight, but documents the fundamental policy changes since 1980 that destabilized the economy and eroded the broad prosperity of the post-war period. His expert analysis explains the outcomes clearly so we can prevent similar financial disasters in the future.