In its 133rd year of publication, Library Journal is the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field, with review sections evaluating nearly 7000 books annually, along with hundreds of audiobooks, videos, databases, web sites, and systems that libraries buy. Recently, Library Journal released its list of the 32 best business books of 2009, dividing the books into nine categories. Here are the final three categories.
Organizational Dynamics
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
by Tim Brown. “Design” and “design thinking” were hot topics in 2009, with Brown offering the most empowering guide for incorporating such planning and thinking into one’s own business or organization (regardless of one’s position).
Managing
by Henry Mintzberg. Mintzberg (management studies, McGill Univ.) spent a day each with 29 managers in different fields and here compiles his research and interpretation of what it truly means to manage—which is not the same thing as adopting every new leadership theory.
Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves
by Adam L. Penenberg. Penenberg (journalism, New York Univ.) provides a history of companies using “viral loops,” i.e., encouraging their users to beget more users, to grow. Also a primer on how viral marketing and partnering (“stackability”) can be implemented.
Small Business/Entrepreneurship
Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur
by Pamela Slim. Former entrepreneur Slim offers a rare combination of down-to-earth advice for starting your own business (including on calculating the value of your benefits before you quit your cubicle job) and personable, humorous writing. Inspired by her blog of the same name.
Success/Personal Performance
The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You
by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. The operators of online business bookstore 800-CEO-Read offer their takes on the 100 best business books of all time, organized into categories including leadership, sales and marketing, biographies, and entrepreneurship.
Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition
by Michael J. Mauboussin. Mauboussin (Legg Mason Capital Management) offers a treatise on business and finance success being the result of both skill and luck; he outlines eight judgment mistakes we frequently make when we fail to “think twice.”
Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World
by Linda Tarr-Whelan. Of the many books by and about women in business published in 2009, Tarr-Whelan’s offers the most concrete suggestions both for achieving success and working to change organizational and societal norms to aid other women.
