Free Books

There's a publishing company in my office block that hands out free books periodically. They haven't done it in a while but was walking back from a coffee break today and noticed that they were laying out a nice spread. Picked up three books that I hope to get some time to read.

The Leadership Moment, Michael Useem I like this guy. He is the director of Wharton's Center for Leadership and Change and his other book, "Leading Up", has been one that has actually been useful for me in my professional life. He is very interesting to read for a business book because he writes short stories to convey his point. Last week I was hanging out in the Penn Bookstore waiting to meet a Wharton alum and I picked up The Leadership Moment and started reading the chapter on John Gutfreund and the troubles at Salomon, Inc. This was a lucky find, I am going to read some of this over the weekend.

The Economist Guide to Economic Indicators The jacket of this book says that it is a book that helps you 'make sense of economics'. Well, I hope it does. Leafed through it and it's almost textbook like in its coverage of topics. Everything from how to measure economic activity to pricing and wages, GDP, exchange rates, financial markets etc. If I do end up going to b-school this would be a good read over the summer to get myself into studying mode again.

When good companies do bad things, Peter Schwartz and Blair Gibb Picked this one up on a lark. Was joking with my co-worker that this was probably written for our company :-) But it's actually a book about social responsibility of corporations, and examines various cases like Nike, Shell, Texaco and Nestle. This one will probably sit in my bookshelf for a while before I find the time to read it.