Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping by Paco Underhill Chock-full of fascinating details about the behaviors of shoppers in situ. While clearly a book of shameless self-promotion for Mr. Underhill, he certainly does a good job of it! After reading this book, one is left with far more questions than answers, and an inexorable [...]

China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, by Ted C. Fishman This book is difficult for me to rate. The writing style is somehow both densely packed and needlessly fluffy. Fishman works very hard at dropping long strings of metaphores into each sentence, making it difficult–and somewhat annoying–to [...]

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, Bruce M. Patton, and William L. Ury A smart, succinct, and empowering book covering various common-sense negotiation tactics. Full of practical and realistic case studies, and no-nonsense advice. A quick read; I read it in three easy evenings. Three thumbs up!

Wyeth at Kuerners by Andrew Wyeth I remember sitting on a foot stool in the isle of the Columbus College of Art and Design library, perusing this book. I was in tears. The work moved me in a way that only Andrew Wyeth can, and this–his raw, unfinished studies and works–is some of his most [...]

Master Handbook of Acoustics by F. Alton Everest When I started at Bose, I figured I should learn the basics. What better way than to read the book? This is one of the most popular text books on acoustics, and I have to admit I found it fascinating. It does delve into the math occasionally, [...]

Tough Choices: A Memoir by Carly Fiorina I remember seeing Carly speak in one of her annual big-screen global conference meetings when I interned at HP in Houston. I was impressed with her. When the HP scandals erupted that resulted in her ousting, I was both disappointed and very curious about the circumstances of the [...]

Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifet My wife took a class at Harvard with one of the authors of this book, and subsequently had me read it. It’s full of wisdom for leaders and would-be leaders. It gets a bit frilly toward the [...]

The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are; by Henry Petroski A very fun collection of historical novelties. A fast read, with lots of interesting tid-bits. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in the sheer number of “aha!” factoids. [...]

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs This book has forever changed my preconceptions about cities and how they really work. The beginning is a bit of a rant, and the overall tone is annoyingly condescending, but the information and analysis is truly astonishing. As life in the twenty-first century increasingly [...]

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford Chock-full of fascinating factoids about the origins of the Mongol empire that once stretched all across southern Eurasia, and arguably created the trade routes that created the modern world as we know it. The first three-quarters of the book are fantastic, though it [...]

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson This book is fantastic. It created in me a totally new fascination with nineteenth-century America and the industrial economy of the era. The book alternates chapters between the story of the architects who created the 1893 [...]

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan “What should we eat?” This is the Omnivore’s Dilemma. The first section of the book is interesting if a bit meladramatic, but the middle of the book (Polyface Farm) makes it worth reading. The account of the workings of a “beyond organic” farm [...]