The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman is an in depth look at the world in the cheap, universal telecommunications age. The ease with which international communities can now communicate has flattened out the world competition so that the “lions” are now in direct competition with the “gazelles.” As Friedman, a New York Times columnist, puts it, “economic stability is not going to be a feature” of our future. But those entrepreneurs who are adaptable and tough will prosper.
Friedman addresses the future of outsourcing and off-shoring, showing the reader why he is generally in favor of both developments. He closes the book with a look at global Islamism from both a global and political perspective.

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is a book about economics for people who don’t like economics or see what it has to do with them. Levitt is considered one of the brightest young minds in his field today, and along with New York Times writer Dubner, he delves behind all sorts of behavior and social patterns, exposing hidden economic factors. From baby name trends to bedtime story products, this book explains the results and the motivating factors behind so many things that we usually take for granted. You will get an inside look at the organizational structure of drug dealing gangs and the theorized link between legalized abortion and a reduced rate of crime. This is the book that you didn’t know you needed.

The Little Book That Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt and Andrew Tobias is the perfect book for the amateur stock market investor. Promising better than average returns in the long run, the authors promote a “value-oriented” approach to stocks. The basic theory is to look for stocks whose shares are cheap in comparison to the company’s potential profits. There is a ranking that places stocks according to one of two conditions: the earnings yield and the business’s return on capital. Tobias calls this his “magic formula” and automates it for readers who visit his website. While the book acknowledges the existence of short term downturns, they do offer solutions to get you through these inevitable periods. If you want to stretch yourself beyond your latest mutual fund portfolio, this is a great book to guide you through the stock market jungle.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell is an interesting theory about the way we perceive and process data. Gladwell, bestselling author of The Tipping Point, promotes the idea that in the first two seconds of seeing something or someone, we make decisions that are right on the money. He uses examples from marriage, an emergency room, the golf course, a speed dating night, a car lot, and military battlefield to make his point that we should focus on “thin slices” of behavior to assess a situation. While he warns of skillful marketers who can manipulate our first impressions, he still makes quite a good case for enhancing your high stacks decision making ability.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins does not offer some get rich quick scheme for your small business. But the author does work with a team of researchers to analyze the substantial performance of nearly fifteen hundred companies over a period of time. The book uses eleven as examples, including Walgreens, Fannie Mae, Gillette, and Wells Fargo, and shows the traits that these companies have in common that propelled them to great performance. Most of them went against traditional corporate ideas about what it takes to become so great. In fact, the book says that the heart of these success stories lies in the people. This is a wonderful guidebook to incorporating some of the same methods of increase as these exemplary companies.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter is the fascinating perspective of a very wealthy man. Kiyoski is an author and lecturer who has developed theories about what makes people wealthy based on attitudes and applications of two fathers, one rich and one poor. The basic premise of the theory is that “the poor and the middle class work for money.” But, says Kiyosaki, “The rich have money work for them.” The author, who retired at age forty seven, promotes a financial literacy that is not taught in schools but would change the state of the middle class.