Marcos Moret
The autobiography of the clever chap who won the race to decode the human genome. At times it's pretty hard-going as he really gets into the detail of the politics between the competing bodies in the race, and some of the science becomes a bit difficult to follow, leaving the storytelling as a bit of an afterthought. Still worth a read - just be ready to skip good-sized chunks every now and again.
This is a epic book (6 months, but I got there!)...don't go reading it expecting to get a particularly deep insight into how Buffet went about becoming the richest man on Earth. But it's a good story and, assuming it's not massaging his image too much, then it's consoling that such a decent bloke could make it all the way to the top.
Written by the founders of 37 Signals (of Basecamp and Ruby on Rails fame), this reads well as a manifesto for setting up and running a small business. However, it's very light on real-world examples, and so overall feels lacking in rigour. Also, while I have no quibbles with the content, there's very little here that's new/fresh/enlightening for me personally.
Like a pleasant and yet educational fireside chat with Sir Richard. Gives some nice insights into key events in Virgin's history, the man's modus operandi and - as an extension of that - the culture that he has built at Virgin. There are no real revelations and no particularly in-depth insights but, as a quick and easy ‘business stories'-type read, it's good.
All about the factors that have led to some countries and continents doing better than others - full of fascinating insights that answer questions like ‘why weren't European invaders repelled by rhino-riding African shock troops' (the answer in brief - the shape of the African continent, the relative shortage of domesticable African plants, and the fact rhinos can't be domesticated but European horses were). Can't recommend this enough.
Lewis (of Liar's Poker fame) is such a top writer - he makes the business side of a sport I don't even fully understand the rules of (let alone follow) fascinating. It's all about using data to make decisions, rather than relying on human perception and emotions...so topical stuff. Soon to come out as a film, starring Brad Pitt, aparrently(!)
Centres around systems thinking in the organisation, encouraging a more holistic view of the links between actions and outcomes. Provides some really useful models of the main types of interaction, and full of great case studies, meaning you can immediately reference the ideas here against the issues you'll be familiar with in your workplace. Slight niggle - in need of tighter editing to remove significant amout of fluff, which somewhat dilutes the book's impact.
