
Best Business Books - Anon84
http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/
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physcab
What value is obtained from reading a business book that you cannot learn
yourself? Not cocky, just curious.

~~~
davidw
There are plenty of things you can learn yourself, where books give you a head
start, or give you some insights that might have taken you a while, and a lot
of pain, to figure out yourself.

That said, many business books tend to suffer from a problem of having a
fairly simple concept at heart, and needing to pad that out to make it into
something book length. Thus, my site Squeezed Books, which summarizes them.
I'd also like to foster discussion of some of the books in question, as I
think there is something to be gained from the discussion and dissection of
the ideas presented.

~~~
skmurphy
I agree that many business books have a good ten to twenty page article
trapped inside, with the book length writing required as packaging for sale.
Some books, e.g. Innovator's Dilemma, offer a detailed review of examples that
help to reinforce the basic concepts (as distinct from a collection of
personal anecdotes and reminiscences).

~~~
davidw
> packaging for sale.

... and for future consulting work, in some cases:-)

Yeah, with the good ones, it's not like the rest of it is just "garbage", and
I enjoy reading them, but I think for people who just want to know what the
'big idea' is, you don't need the extras.

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scrollinondubs
Solid list. I've read maybe 1/5th of those. There were some glaring omissions
though:

-Strategy & Innovation: to leave off Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" and "Innovator's Solution" books is sacrilege -Psychology: Roger Dawson's "Power Negotiating" audio series is a must-listen for pysch and negotiating tactics -Business History/Ref: Founders at Work by YCombinator's own Jessica Livingston is a must-read for tech startup founders

There's digests on handful of others I recommend here:
<http://www.scrollinondubs.com/notes>

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thinkcomp
I'm surprised Jerry Kaplan's book isn't on this list. It's called "Startup: A
Silicon Valley Adventure." I'm also enjoying "High Stakes, No Prisoners," by
Charles Ferguson, who invented FrontPage.

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tptacek
This list recommends Zinsser for writing; for a hacker, I'd sub in John
Williams "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace", a Richard Gabriel recommendation
with a more systematic, almost engineer-y bent.

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bostondjango
I definitely don't trust a site that veils their affiliate link. (Load their
SEO optimized 'book links' in lynx then control-c really quickly. You'll see a
link that looks like
ttp://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2F0814473431%2F&tag=personalmba-20&l
)

This site was designed solely to garner commission on book sales. At least
when someone like Jeff Atwood tries to weasel his way into affiliate sales, he
pretends to have read the book and gives a critique.

~~~
Anon84
This is just their reading list. You should checkout the forum and blog. And
yes, those are affiliate links:

    
    
        $ curl -I http://personalmba.com/books/cut-to-the-chase/
        HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
        Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:26:49 GMT
        Server: LiteSpeed
        Connection: Keep-Alive
        Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
        Location: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F %2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2F0385516207%2F&tag=personalmba-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
        $
    

Considering how easy it is to get around the affiliate link (just search for
the ISBN in a separate amazon/google window) OK, he should probably have put a
little disclaimer somewhere about the affiliate program, but other than that,
I don't really understand the "he's using affiliate links" drama. If you were
to buy a book he suggested, why not let him be rewarded for suggesting it? You
lose nothing, and he gets his work rewarded. If you disagree with this, just
buy the book without following his link.

