Amazon.com updates its list of bestselling business books hourly. Here is a snapshot of what books were hot this morning — Monday, September 15.
1. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America
by Thomas L. Friedman. The author of The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
takes a look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America’s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. He asserts that the solutions to these two big problems are linked and that we can restore the world and revive America at the same time.
2. The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio: Get Wise, Get Wealthy…and Get on With Your Life (Agora Series)
by Alexander Green. Outperform the vast majority of investment professionals while paying nothing in sales charges, brokerage fees, or commissions by modifying your investment strategy. Based on a Nobel Prize-winning investment strategy.Gain an understanding of the fundamental relationship between risk and reward in the financial markets and get an insider’s view of how the investment industry really works.
3. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
by Greg Mortenson. Following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, the author, a homeless mountaineer, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.
4. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
by Timothy Ferriss. Author Ferriss isn’t shy about tooting his own horn: He says he “speaks six languages, runs a multinational firm from wireless locations worldwide, and has been a world-record holder in tango, a national champion in kickboxing, and an actor in a hit television series in Hong Kong.” Is this the sort of person you really want to be taking advice from? Anyway, Ferris offers recommendations and resources for everything from eliminating wasted time to oursourcing your job and getting cheap airfare. Discover your dreams and live them!
5. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
by Jim Collins. The author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
, Collins concludes that it is possible for a good company to become a great company, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11–including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo–and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success.
6. Your Complete Retirement Planning Road Map: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Securing IRAs, 401(k)s, and Other Retirement Plans for Yourself and Your Family
by Ed Slott. The country’s foremost retirement planning adviser, now offers expert advice on weathering the perfect storm of financial instability that looms on the horizon. Your Complete Retirement Planning Road Map provides clear step-by-step directions through the highways and byways of IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and other major accounts.
7. StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths
by Tom Rath. Are you unsure where your true talents lie? Do you feel that you are both a person who gets things done and someone who offers penetrating analysis? Well, you can discover whether you are truly an “achiever” or an “analytical” by completing the online quiz. Then, the book will give you “ideas for action” and tips for how best you can work with others. More of a patiencetester than Strengthsfinder, the quiz/book is probably best for those who have lots of time on their hands.
8. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
by Alice Schroeder. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as “The Oracle of Omaha.”
9. Money, and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Wealth, Health, and Happiness
by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks. Not having enough money or not having good health puts you in the perfect position for creating more of that which you do not have. This book has been written to deliberately align you with the most powerful law in the universe—the Law of Attraction—so that you can make it work specifically for you.
10. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini. See Mike Maslanka’s review of this book here.
