Bananas!: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World
by Peter Chapman
Published 2008 by Canongate U.S.

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REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 10/01/2007

With its vast banana plantations and control of railroads and even national treasuries, the Boston-based United Fruit--known as El Pulpo, the Octopus--made the Central American countries whose economies it dominated into archetypical "banana republics." This jaundiced history briskly recaps the firm's misdeeds, including its bribery and political strong-arming, its calling in of Colombian troops who machine-gunned hundreds of strikers in 1928, its prominent role in overthrowing governments in Honduras in 1911 and Guatemala in 1954, and its fostering of a disease-prone banana monoculture that ravaged tropical landscapes. Financial Times writer Chapman interprets the company--with its monopolies, its union busting, its marketing campaigns to get housewives to approve bananas as between-meals snacks, its treatment of whole nations as disposable assets--as the forerunner of today's rapacious multinationals. When Chapman sticks to United Fruit's real, rather than spiritual, influence, he offers a compelling cautionary tale of the evils of overmighty corporations and untrammeled globalization.

Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller
by Steve Weinberg
Published 2008 by W. W. Norton & Company

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REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 12/17/2007

Investigative journalist Weinberg (Armand Hammer: The Untold Story) briskly recounts the story of the rise of the Standard Oil monopoly in the late 19th century and muckraking reporter Ida Tarbell's role in bringing it down. The book is a study in opposites: John D. Rockefeller used his enormous wealth "to establish the staid, stable family life he had lacked as a youngster." Tarbell--raised in bourgeois stability, intellectually ravenous and interested in the women's movement from an early age --resisted women's traditional domestic role. Wishing to help address society's problems, Tarbell was lured into magazine writing, where she developed what Weinberg calls her trademark "tone of controlled outrage." In her articles on Standard, published just after the turn of the 20th century in McClure's and then in book form, she amassed evidence that Rockefeller engaged in "unfair competition" and argued forcefully that all Americans should be concerned with business ethics. Her reporting helped create the modern genre of investigative journalism.

The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life
by John Assaraf
Published 2008 by Atria Books

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Jacket Notes:

A key team member behind "The Secret" and his business partner offer the specific tools and mental strategies to help readers leap ahead in any career or business venture and achieve major financial success.

Finance & Grow Your New Business: Get a Grip on the Money
by Angie Mohr
Published 2008 by Self-Counsel Press

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Jacket Notes:

Entrepreneurs need to know how to measure the effectiveness of their operations, human resources and marketing in order to pinpoint inefficiencies and maximize profits. This book outlines all the ways to raise capital and then make it work for you! Many small business owners aren't able to take that next big step in expanding operations. This book shows you how to raise money to finance expansion, how to analyze key factors in your financial information and develop ratios of return on investment that will indicate the direction you should take your business.

The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession
by Adam Leith Gollner
Published 2008 by Scribner Book Company

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REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 02/18/2008

Journalist Gollner's debut is a rollicking account of the world of fruit and fruit fanatics. He's traveled to many countries in search of exotic fruits, and he describes in sensuous detail some of the hundreds of varieties he's sampled, among them peanut butter fruit, blackberry-jam fruit and coco-de-mer--a suggestively shaped coconut known as the "lady fruit" that grows only in the Seychelles. Equally intriguing are some of the characters he has encountered--a botanist in Borneo who spends his life studying malodorous durians; fruitarians who believe that a fruit diet promotes transcendental experiences; fruitleggers who bypass import laws; and fruit inventors such as the fabricator of the Grapple--which looks like an apple and tastes like a grape. The FDA and the often dubious activities of the international fruit trade, multinational corporations like Chiquita, come in for scrutiny, as does New York City's largest wholesale produce market, in a chapter with more information than one may want on biochemical growth inhibitors, hormone-based retardants, dyes, waxes and corrupt USDA inspectors. Gollner's passion for fruit is infectious, and his fascinating book is a testament to the fact that there is much more to the world of fruit than the bland varieties on our supermarket shelves.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
by Alice Schroeder
Published 2008 by Bantam

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A portrait of the life and career of investment guru Warren Buffett sheds new light on the man, as well as on the work, ideas, business principles, strategies, and no-nonsense insights that have guided his phenomenally successful business endeavors.

The One Minute Entrepreneur: The Secret to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Business
by Ken Blanchard
Published 2008 by Doubleday Business

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780385526029

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Ken Blanchard (coauthor of the #1 bestselling business classic The One Minute Manager), Don Hutson, CEO of U.S. Learning, and Ethan Willis, CEO of Prosper Learning, tell the inspiring story of one man’s challenges in creating his own business. Through a powerful and engaging narrative, we confront many of the typical problems all entrepreneurs face in starting up their business, from finding new sources of revenue to securing the commitment of their people and the loyalty of their customers. More important, we learn the secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur, including how to build a firm foundation, how to ensure a steady cash flow, and how to create legendary service.

Flip: How to Turn Everything You Know on Its Head--And Succeed Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings
by Peter Sheahan
Published 2008 by William Morrow & Company

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061558955

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Sheahan, consultant and Young Turk of the business world, turns conventional wisdom around to discover marketing techniques effective with today's younger consumers, "who can't go to the toilet without phoning five of their friends." Sheahan puts forth business model-shattering concepts like gaining control by giving it up: allowing customers, networks and rank-and-file employees to improve products through feedback, interaction and inclusiveness. He even "flips"conventional thinking on outsourcing: "It is one thing to make products or do the paperwork for the world cheaply, and it is another entirely to innovate, design and sell goods and services to the world's advanced consumer markets." Sheahan illustrates his points convincingly with examples pulled from the business headlines, though some of his ideas may strike readers as overly dramatic and hard to follow, like putting as much effort into staff satisfaction as into customer satisfaction. Business owners and decision makers trying to capture the hearts and minds of today's younger consumers will find this a helpful guide.