Let’s Have A Conversation

Let’s have a conversation. About business books.

Karl and I have each read a minimum of one business book a month for nearly 10 years. We know the field. We have traveled the terrain. And there have been periods of really good books, and a few sparse periods. I wonder – are we in one of those sparse periods?

Check the current Amazon business best-seller list, and you will find titles we presented (many, long ago) at the First Friday Book Synopsis.

(The Amazon list is updated hourly, but look at this from the list at midday on 1/17/08: Good to Great, #1; Freakonomics, #6; The Tipping Point, #7; Getting Things Done, #8; The Black Swan, #12; Made to Stick, #14; Now Discover Your Strengths, #15; Blink, #16; Who Moved My Cheese, #18; Nickel and Dimed, #20.)

The rest of the current business best-sellers in the top 20 don’t quite fit our purposes (books on personal financial success seem to be prominent).

As we choose titles, we do our best to choose books that have a broad appeal, books that point us to a new direction, or at least point us to new questions, and, of course, books that are worth our time and yours.

I ask you: do you have any thoughts about the current list of best sellers? Why are so many of these current business best-sellers not really “current” books? Are we in a stagnant time? Are the economic woes in the country affecting the choice of books that land on our radar?

Please write your comments. I would love to think through this question with others.