Book Reviews
Your Strategy Needs a Strategy: How to Choose and Execute the Right Approach Martin Reeves, Knut Haanaes, and Janmejava Sinha Harvard Business Review Press (2015) “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” — Michael Porter Porter’s comment…
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The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2015) How and why a small, informal discussion group is viewed today as “a…
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I am now in the process of reading The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland, written by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and published by Belknap Press (June 2015). This study of the queasy relationship between Lewis Carroll…
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God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican Gerald Posner Simon & Schuster 2015) A brilliant analysis of “the inexorable quest for power that is tied to the pursuit of money” in the Roman Catholic Church According…
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Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World Rachel Swaby B/D/W/Y: Broadway Books (2015) “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller Do you already know that, during the last 100 years or so, many of the most…
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The Management Century Stuart Crainer Jossey-Bass/Wiley Imprint (2000) A brilliant survey of cutting-edge business thinking in the 20th century Note: I reviewed this book when it was published in 2000 and recently re-read it in preparation to read and then…
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Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early VANITY FAIR Edited by Graydon Carter with David Friend Penguin Press (2014) Yes, Virginia, there really is a machine in which you can return in time to the United States: 1913-193…
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BIG DATA: Using SMART Big Data, Analytics and Metrics To Make Better Decisions and Improve Performance Bernard Marr John Wiley & Sons (2015) How and why SMART decisions are based on SMART analytics Much of what I know about “big…
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Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation Grant McCracken Basic Books (2009) The world outside the corporation: ”the body of ideas, emotions, and activities that make up the life of the consumer” I read this book when…
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Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It John Ferling Bloomsbury Press (2015) How and why the American Revolution “was caused and driven by economic factors and colonists’ desire to control their destiny” I was and remain intrigued…
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