Think back to the last time you made a decision based solely on cold, hard logic. Having trouble? Much as we’d like to be rational, the truth is we’re often ruled by our emotions. We go back to the store that feels comfortable, we buy the dress that makes us feel sexy, we eat at the restaurant that makes us feel at home. Here’s the lesson all marketers and managers should heed: It’s time to get in touch with your emotions, and three new business books can show you how to achieve this elusive goal.

Going out of your mind Jack Zufelt is a top professional speaker, a successful trainer and a highly acclaimed consultant and entrepreneur. Not exactly the guy you’d expect to dismiss goal-setting, self-help books and even motivational speakers in his new book The DNA of Success: Know What You Want to Get What You Want (HarperCollins, $26.00, 224 pages, ISBN 0060006587). Success is “an inside job,” says Zufelt, one that defies the rational baggage of “shoulds” and “ought-tos.” Instead, he says it’s time to get out of your head and tap into your emotions to find out what your heart truly yearns for. Those “core desires” in turn ignite the powerful “conquering forces” that motivate you to overcome all obstacles.

To be honest, it is work digging down to those core desires, but the process can be revelatory and even fun when done with a partner. The reward is in finally figuring out what you truly desire and discovering the passion to go out and achieve it.

Zufelt simplifies the complex ideas with his positive, can-do approach and includes plenty of personal stories. He moves beyond business applications to show how your core desires relate to creating family relationships, growing spiritually and improving self-image. The road to riches The team that created the blockbuster First, Break All the Rules is back with new revelations in Follow This Path (Warner, $26.95, 256 pages, ISBN 0446530506). Most companies are hoping to find the road to riches by tweaking price or by slapping “new ∧ improved!” everywhere, but that’s a dead end, say Curt Coffman and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina. Customers base their loyalty on the way your company makes them feel, and it’s your employees that make or break that connection.

The commonsense ideas are based on a study by the Gallup Organization that questioned more than 10 million customers, three million employees and 200,000 managers. The findings concluded that what customers buy and keep buying is based on how they feel, and the best way to connect with a customer’s emotion is not through brands, slogans or jingles, but another human being. It’s a wake-up call for companies who are ignoring the untapped resources of their work force. The ideas seem simple develop employees’ strengths instead of fixing weaknesses; don’t treat everyone the same way but finding a company that recognizes the emotion-driven economy is rare.

Follow This Path creates an easy-to-follow road map for managers who want to engage and inspire their employees. The authors outline 34 different talent areas, describe the kind of work environment employees want and show managers how to achieve it. The 12 conditions of a great workplace (“There is someone at work who encourages my development” and “I have a best friend at work”) might sound like utopia for workers, but today’s great companies are finding a way to make it a reality.

The pursuit of pleasure Melinda Davis’ The New Culture of Desire is a challenging look at what motivates us in today’s hyper-connected world (Free Press, $26, 288 pages, ISBN 074320459X). The goal of Davis’ company, The Next Group, is to get inside the minds of today’s consumers, and during the past six years they have probed the shift in human desires. According to Davis, the old motivators sex, money and power have taken a back seat to the new driving force in human behavior: the pursuit of pleasure.

Davis begins by laying out the complicated assertion that the physical world is dead, and we’ve moved into what she calls “imaginational reality.” With pervasive technology and media coming at us from every direction, we have abandoned concrete reality and now live our lives in our heads. It’s a thought-provoking idea that has the scary ring of truth.

Now that we’ve transitioned into a new reality, we’ve developed a new survival instinct, says Davis. Instead of worrying about physical attacks, we’re now protecting our brains from assault. We’ve all become “imaginational age mental patients” looking for a product or service to be our healer.

If Davis still sounds like the crazy one, think about the $15 billion we spend each year on antidepressants. And that doesn’t include the tab on bubble baths, chocolate, alcohol and all the other guilty pleasures we use to self-medicate. Whether you agree with Davis’ ideas or not, The New Culture of Desire is fascinating reading that leaves you thinking about the changed reality in which we live.

Busting the Boom-Boom Room Nick Cuneo was the ultimate macho boss. The Smith Barney branch manager was notoriously creative with the F-word, kept a gun in his desk and instituted an infamous basement party room dubbed the Boom-Boom Room where happy hour started as early as 10 a.m. The Garden City, New York, branch and its boss were consistently top performers for the financial services firm, but the good times didn’t make up for the consistent abuse and intimidation directed toward female employees. Fed up with the groping and discrimination, women Cuneo had labeled with such nicknames as the Stepford Wife and the Playboy Bunny fought back with a class action lawsuit.

Journalist Susan Antilla tells the riveting story in Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street. Antilla followed the case from its beginnings, and the result is an intriguing cross between Liar’s Poker and A Civil Action. Readers get a fascinating look at the appalling behavior Wall Street chose to ignore and a guide through the machinations of a landmark case.

Led by outspoken broker Pamela Martens, women from Smith Barney branches across the country came together to expose the sexual hazing and unequal pay practices that damaged their careers. Most of the women involved in the suit are now forbidden to talk about the case because of settlement agreements, but Antilla vividly re-creates the characters and events. This story doesn’t come with a happy ending; many of the women quit their jobs or left the industry altogether and some dropped their complaints rather than face the daunting legal process with no sure reward. But Wall Street fears bad publicity even more than litigation, and this riveting human and legal drama will ensure that the stories told by these courageous women won’t be forgotten.

Think back to the last time you made a decision based solely on cold, hard logic. Having trouble? Much as we’d like to be rational, the truth is we’re often ruled by our emotions. We go back to the store that feels comfortable, we buy the dress that makes us feel sexy, we eat at the restaurant that makes us feel at home. Here’s the lesson all marketers and managers should heed: It’s time to get in touch with your emotions, and three new business books can show you how to achieve this elusive goal.

Going out of your mind Jack Zufelt is a top professional speaker, a successful trainer and a highly acclaimed consultant and entrepreneur. Not exactly the guy you’d expect to dismiss goal-setting, self-help books and even motivational speakers in his new book The DNA of Success: Know What You Want to Get What You Want (HarperCollins, $26.00, 224 pages, ISBN 0060006587). Success is "an inside job," says Zufelt, one that defies the rational baggage of "shoulds" and "ought-tos." Instead, he says it’s time to get out of your head and tap into your emotions to find out what your heart truly yearns for. Those "core desires" in turn ignite the powerful "conquering forces" that motivate you to overcome all obstacles.

To be honest, it is work digging down to those core desires, but the process can be revelatory and even fun when done with a partner. The reward is in finally figuring out what you truly desire and discovering the passion to go out and achieve it.

Zufelt simplifies the complex ideas with his positive, can-do approach and includes plenty of personal stories. He moves beyond business applications to show how your core desires relate to creating family relationships, growing spiritually and improving self-image. The road to riches The team that created the blockbuster First, Break All the Rules is back with new revelations in Follow This Path. Most companies are hoping to find the road to riches by tweaking price or by slapping "new ∧ improved!" everywhere, but that’s a dead end, say Curt Coffman and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina. Customers base their loyalty on the way your company makes them feel, and it’s your employees that make or break that connection.

The commonsense ideas are based on a study by the Gallup Organization that questioned more than 10 million customers, three million employees and 200,000 managers. The findings concluded that what customers buy and keep buying is based on how they feel, and the best way to connect with a customer’s emotion is not through brands, slogans or jingles, but another human being. It’s a wake-up call for companies who are ignoring the untapped resources of their work force. The ideas seem simple develop employees’ strengths instead of fixing weaknesses; don’t treat everyone the same way but finding a company that recognizes the emotion-driven economy is rare.

Follow This Path creates an easy-to-follow road map for managers who want to engage and inspire their employees. The authors outline 34 different talent areas, describe the kind of work environment employees want and show managers how to achieve it. The 12 conditions of a great workplace ("There is someone at work who encourages my development" and "I have a best friend at work") might sound like utopia for workers, but today’s great companies are finding a way to make it a reality.

The pursuit of pleasure Melinda Davis’ The New Culture of Desire is a challenging look at what motivates us in today’s hyper-connected world (Free Press, $26, 288 pages, ISBN 074320459X). The goal of Davis’ company, The Next Group, is to get inside the minds of today’s consumers, and during the past six years they have probed the shift in human desires. According to Davis, the old motivators sex, money and power have taken a back seat to the new driving force in human behavior: the pursuit of pleasure.

Davis begins by laying out the complicated assertion that the physical world is dead, and we’ve moved into what she calls "imaginational reality." With pervasive technology and media coming at us from every direction, we have abandoned concrete reality and now live our lives in our heads. It’s a thought-provoking idea that has the scary ring of truth.

Now that we’ve transitioned into a new reality, we’ve developed a new survival instinct, says Davis. Instead of worrying about physical attacks, we’re now protecting our brains from assault. We’ve all become "imaginational age mental patients" looking for a product or service to be our healer.

If Davis still sounds like the crazy one, think about the $15 billion we spend each year on antidepressants. And that doesn’t include the tab on bubble baths, chocolate, alcohol and all the other guilty pleasures we use to self-medicate. Whether you agree with Davis’ ideas or not, The New Culture of Desire is fascinating reading that leaves you thinking about the changed reality in which we live.

Busting the Boom-Boom Room Nick Cuneo was the ultimate macho boss. The Smith Barney branch manager was notoriously creative with the F-word, kept a gun in his desk and instituted an infamous basement party room dubbed the Boom-Boom Room where happy hour started as early as 10 a.m. The Garden City, New York, branch and its boss were consistently top performers for the financial services firm, but the good times didn’t make up for the consistent abuse and intimidation directed toward female employees. Fed up with the groping and discrimination, women Cuneo had labeled with such nicknames as the Stepford Wife and the Playboy Bunny fought back with a class action lawsuit.

Journalist Susan Antilla tells the riveting story in Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street (Bloomberg, $26.95, 384 pages, ISBN 1576600785). Antilla followed the case from its beginnings, and the result is an intriguing cross between Liar’s Poker and A Civil Action. Readers get a fascinating look at the appalling behavior Wall Street chose to ignore and a guide through the machinations of a landmark case.

Led by outspoken broker Pamela Martens, women from Smith Barney branches across the country came together to expose the sexual hazing and unequal pay practices that damaged their careers. Most of the women involved in the suit are now forbidden to talk about the case because of settlement agreements, but Antilla vividly re-creates the characters and events. This story doesn’t come with a happy ending; many of the women quit their jobs or left the industry altogether and some dropped their complaints rather than face the daunting legal process with no sure reward. But Wall Street fears bad publicity even more than litigation, and this riveting human and legal drama will ensure that the stories told by these courageous women won’t be forgotten.

Think back to the last time you made a decision based solely on cold, hard logic. Having trouble? Much as we’d like to be rational, the truth is we’re often ruled by our emotions. We go back to the store that feels comfortable, we buy the dress that makes us feel sexy, we eat at the restaurant that makes us feel at home. Here’s the lesson all marketers and managers should heed: It’s time to get in touch with your emotions, and three new business books can show you how to achieve this elusive goal.

Going out of your mind

Jack Zufelt is a top professional speaker, a successful trainer and a highly acclaimed consultant and entrepreneur. Not exactly the guy you’d expect to dismiss goal-setting, self-help books and even motivational speakers in his new book The DNA of Success: Know What You Want to Get What You Want . Success is "an inside job," says Zufelt, one that defies the rational baggage of "shoulds" and "ought-tos." Instead, he says it’s time to get out of your head and tap into your emotions to find out what your heart truly yearns for. Those "core desires" in turn ignite the powerful "conquering forces" that motivate you to overcome all obstacles.

To be honest, it is work digging down to those core desires, but the process can be revelatory and even fun when done with a partner. The reward is in finally figuring out what you truly desire and discovering the passion to go out and achieve it.

Zufelt simplifies the complex ideas with his positive, can-do approach and includes plenty of personal stories. He moves beyond business applications to show how your core desires relate to creating family relationships, growing spiritually and improving self-image.

The road to riches

The team that created the blockbuster First, Break All the Rules is back with new revelations in Follow This Path (Warner, $26.95, 256 pages, ISBN 0446530506). Most companies are hoping to find the road to riches by tweaking price or by slapping "new & improved!" everywhere, but that’s a dead end, say Curt Coffman and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina. Customers base their loyalty on the way your company makes them feel, and it’s your employees that make or break that connection.

The commonsense ideas are based on a study by the Gallup Organization that questioned more than 10 million customers, three million employees and 200,000 managers. The findings concluded that what customers buy and keep buying is based on how they feel, and the best way to connect with a customer’s emotion is not through brands, slogans or jingles, but another human being. It’s a wake-up call for companies who are ignoring the untapped resources of their work force. The ideas seem simple develop employees’ strengths instead of fixing weaknesses; don’t treat everyone the same way but finding a company that recognizes the emotion-driven economy is rare.

Follow This Path creates an easy-to-follow road map for managers who want to engage and inspire their employees. The authors outline 34 different talent areas, describe the kind of work environment employees want and show managers how to achieve it. The 12 conditions of a great workplace ("There is someone at work who encourages my development" and "I have a best friend at work") might sound like utopia for workers, but today’s great companies are finding a way to make it a reality.

The pursuit of pleasure

Melinda Davis’ The New Culture of Desire is a challenging look at what motivates us in today’s hyper-connected world (Free Press, $26, 288 pages, ISBN 074320459X). The goal of Davis’ company, The Next Group, is to get inside the minds of today’s consumers, and during the past six years they have probed the shift in human desires. According to Davis, the old motivators sex, money and power have taken a back seat to the new driving force in human behavior: the pursuit of pleasure.

Davis begins by laying out the complicated assertion that the physical world is dead, and we’ve moved into what she calls "imaginational reality." With pervasive technology and media coming at us from every direction, we have abandoned concrete reality and now live our lives in our heads. It’s a thought-provoking idea that has the scary ring of truth.

Now that we’ve transitioned into a new reality, we’ve developed a new survival instinct, says Davis. Instead of worrying about physical attacks, we’re now protecting our brains from assault. We’ve all become "imaginational age mental patients" looking for a product or service to be our healer.

If Davis still sounds like the crazy one, think about the $15 billion we spend each year on antidepressants. And that doesn’t include the tab on bubble baths, chocolate, alcohol and all the other guilty pleasures we use to self-medicate. Whether you agree with Davis’ ideas or not, The New Culture of Desire is fascinating reading that leaves you thinking about the changed reality in which we live.

Busting the Boom-Boom Room

Nick Cuneo was the ultimate macho boss. The Smith Barney branch manager was notoriously creative with the F-word, kept a gun in his desk and instituted an infamous basement party room dubbed the Boom-Boom Room where happy hour started as early as 10 a.m. The Garden City, New York, branch and its boss were consistently top performers for the financial services firm, but the good times didn’t make up for the consistent abuse and intimidation directed toward female employees. Fed up with the groping and discrimination, women Cuneo had labeled with such nicknames as the Stepford Wife and the Playboy Bunny fought back with a class action lawsuit.

Journalist Susan Antilla tells the riveting story in Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street (Bloomberg, $26.95, 384 pages, ISBN 1576600785). Antilla followed the case from its beginnings, and the result is an intriguing cross between Liar’s Poker and A Civil Action. Readers get a fascinating look at the appalling behavior Wall Street chose to ignore and a guide through the machinations of a landmark case.

Led by outspoken broker Pamela Martens, women from Smith Barney branches across the country came together to expose the sexual hazing and unequal pay practices that damaged their careers. Most of the women involved in the suit are now forbidden to talk about the case because of settlement agreements, but Antilla vividly re-creates the characters and events. This story doesn’t come with a happy ending; many of the women quit their jobs or left the industry altogether and some dropped their complaints rather than face the daunting legal process with no sure reward. But Wall Street fears bad publicity even more than litigation, and this riveting human and legal drama will ensure that the stories told by these courageous women won’t be forgotten.

When the markets crash, your nest egg goes splash and you wish you had cash, that’s a bear market. Sadly, most investors spent the summer watching portfolios shrink and blue chips sink as money retreated from Wall Street. That, my friends, is the downside of investing.

If you’re in the market for the long term, here’s what to do seek the advice of people, like the authors below, who’ve weathered the storms. Most will recommend that you diversify, diversify, diversify. Then, hold tight, remembering that a diversified portfolio will share in the gains when the bulls return to Wall Street and in the meantime, your money will be far less likely to smash, crash or splash.

Common sense reigns I know these first guys well. From their days as the hip" investment advisors on AOL to their current monopoly on common sense in the financial world, the Gardner brothers preach a sensible, stable approach to personal finance and investing. So I wasn’t surprised to find that The Motley Fool’s What to Do With Your Money Now: Ten Steps to Staying Up in a Down Market by David and Tom Gardner (Simon ∧ Schuster, $23, 212 pages, ISBN 0743233786) mimics the no-nonsense advice they dispense daily on their Web site, on TV and radio and in their news column. What’s new in this book is the Gardners’ self-deprecating ability to use their own flops as examples of what’s wrong with investing" right now. They admit to financial and business-building mistakes, offering personal examples designed to keep you from taking the wrong turns in your own portfolios. This is sage advice from Fools.

Time to learn Safer Investing in Volatile Markets: Twelve Proven Strategies to Increase Your Income and Financial Security by Carolann Doherty-Brown (Dearborn, $18.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0793151481) is a straightforward guide to understanding the strategy and timing issues most financial advisors and stock brokers use to advise their clients. Knowing how long you will hold and then sell a stock is as important as understanding a company’s P/E ratio or its audit practices. Knowing what your broker knows, and how he should react to market trends, is insurance for you and your portfolio. In the long run, the smart investor survives by being educated about all the issues at work in the markets. As Brown says, my 12 strategies will not work all the time for all people, but history has shown they do work most of the time." Follow her lead for long-term growth and an escape from the roller coaster markets.

Is it a stock or a bond? Most people don’t know the difference between stocks and bonds. Over the years, I’ve encountered many investors who just think bonds pay less" than stocks. So I’m delighted to report there’s finally a book that shows how this integral part of a portfolio works. The Money-Making Guide to Bonds: Straightforward Strategies for Picking the Right Bonds and Bond Funds by Hildy and Stan Richelson (Bloomberg, $26.95, 304 pages, ISBN 1576601226) delivers a wealth of information on what bonds are, how to pick bonds and how to plan bond investing. Bonds should not be trendy additions to portfolios in bad times, the authors argue, but a well-thought out portion of any serious investment or retirement plan. Get off the bubble Bubbleology: The New Science of Stock Market Winners and Losers by Kevin Hassett offers an interesting and timely look at why stock market prices rise and fall and how group psychology intersects with finance. Recent market reactions would make any investor wonder are we all a group of untrained lemmings rushing toward the cliff? Hassett, an economist and frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, argues that traditional ways of assessing a stock’s inherent risk (equating it with volatility) are flawed. He offers a set of simple principles to explain why investors panic when they see a bubble" or steep rise in the markets and what you can do to profit from the market’s overreactions to bubblespotting." A timely book, yes, but one that teaches long-term approaches to investing and offers interesting insight into the mind of the market.

When the markets crash, your nest egg goes splash and you wish you had cash, that’s a bear market. Sadly, most investors spent the summer watching portfolios shrink and blue chips sink as money retreated from Wall Street. That, my friends, is the downside of investing.

If you’re in the market for the long term, here’s what to do seek the advice of people, like the authors below, who’ve weathered the storms. Most will recommend that you diversify, diversify, diversify. Then, hold tight, remembering that a diversified portfolio will share in the gains when the bulls return to Wall Street and in the meantime, your money will be far less likely to smash, crash or splash.

Common sense reigns I know these first guys well. From their days as the hip” investment advisors on AOL to their current monopoly on common sense in the financial world, the Gardner brothers preach a sensible, stable approach to personal finance and investing. So I wasn’t surprised to find that The Motley Fool’s What to Do With Your Money Now: Ten Steps to Staying Up in a Down Market by David and Tom Gardner (Simon ∧ Schuster, $23, 212 pages, ISBN 0743233786) mimics the no-nonsense advice they dispense daily on their Web site, on TV and radio and in their news column. What’s new in this book is the Gardners’ self-deprecating ability to use their own flops as examples of what’s wrong with investing” right now. They admit to financial and business-building mistakes, offering personal examples designed to keep you from taking the wrong turns in your own portfolios. This is sage advice from Fools.

Time to learn Safer Investing in Volatile Markets: Twelve Proven Strategies to Increase Your Income and Financial Security by Carolann Doherty-Brown is a straightforward guide to understanding the strategy and timing issues most financial advisors and stock brokers use to advise their clients. Knowing how long you will hold and then sell a stock is as important as understanding a company’s P/E ratio or its audit practices. Knowing what your broker knows, and how he should react to market trends, is insurance for you and your portfolio. In the long run, the smart investor survives by being educated about all the issues at work in the markets. As Brown says, my 12 strategies will not work all the time for all people, but history has shown they do work most of the time.” Follow her lead for long-term growth and an escape from the roller coaster markets.

Is it a stock or a bond? Most people don’t know the difference between stocks and bonds. Over the years, I’ve encountered many investors who just think bonds pay less” than stocks. So I’m delighted to report there’s finally a book that shows how this integral part of a portfolio works. The Money-Making Guide to Bonds: Straightforward Strategies for Picking the Right Bonds and Bond Funds by Hildy and Stan Richelson (Bloomberg, $26.95, 304 pages, ISBN 1576601226) delivers a wealth of information on what bonds are, how to pick bonds and how to plan bond investing. Bonds should not be trendy additions to portfolios in bad times, the authors argue, but a well-thought out portion of any serious investment or retirement plan. Get off the bubble Bubbleology: The New Science of Stock Market Winners and Losers by Kevin Hassett (Crown Business, $18.95, 128 pages, ISBN 0609609297) offers an interesting and timely look at why stock market prices rise and fall and how group psychology intersects with finance. Recent market reactions would make any investor wonder are we all a group of untrained lemmings rushing toward the cliff? Hassett, an economist and frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, argues that traditional ways of assessing a stock’s inherent risk (equating it with volatility) are flawed. He offers a set of simple principles to explain why investors panic when they see a bubble” or steep rise in the markets and what you can do to profit from the market’s overreactions to bubblespotting.” A timely book, yes, but one that teaches long-term approaches to investing and offers interesting insight into the mind of the market.

Move my cheese. I dare you. Yes, the business curmudgeon is now in residence. National layoffs and shady corporate accounting practices brought on a severe case of arthritis in my funny bone. Consumer debt, anti-mom hiring practices, a computer virus (and hockey playoffs that lasted well into May) just plain shut down my tickle reflex. This curmudgeon admits it recent business news has taken the sunshine out of my earnings forecast. This month, humor me as we look at three books that promise to reactivate the funny bone in any weary road warrior. Let’s just say they will help you bite off a new piece of cheese.

I need daycare Sometimes what ails you at work is what ails you at home. If you have ever worked from home (or thought about it) pick up Life’s Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom by Lisa Belkin. She’ll stop you before you do great damage to yourself. Belkin, the author of the witty weekly Life’s Work column in The New York Times, exposes the myths and joys of work, family and the balancing act that almost every woman tries to perform before realizing that it’s all just too much. With humor and happiness, Belkin describes the exacting way her kids and even her dog took all control from her life. They left her with a little time to work at the computer and a lot of time to clean up and make dinner for them. After Life’s Work you’ll never look at life and work the same way again.

Burn your business books The New! New Economy by Tim McEachern and Chris O’Brien is the one book you need to read to stay in business! Or not. A hilarious satire of just about every business book ever written, McEachern and O’Brien team to undermine and ridicule every business practice ever invented, touted or marketed as a "bestseller idea." Have you ever suffered through the unqualified boredom of a marketing demographics lecture? McEachern and O’Brien have written down what you were really thinking while Consumer Insights Professionals painted a rosy picture of your demographic. ("18-29 year olds? A bunch of overspending baby nut cases. . . . 65 plus? They’re just accessing the bitterness.") Yeah, this team says what you only thought. Forget Dilbert; he’s too tame. This is the kind of sarcasm you need to face your job day after day.

A dog’s life 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com by Mike Daisey is a memoir of a self-proclaimed dilettante’s life at Amazon.com, a time he remembers as work, play and Jeff. As he describes his first interview at Amazon: "There was a certain inescapable sameness to their responses. They seemed fixated on the words Ôworking,’ Ôplaying,’ and ÔJeff.’ Jeff came up constantly. I had no idea who Jeff was." "Jeff" turns out to be founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and Daisey’s first clue that he was probably not cut out for techie Internet work. But Amazon hired him right away and the next two years of his life were spent bewitched and bedazzled by the Internet craze. Daisey’s tale is one of self-recognition in a business world gone mad. His curious, funny and slightly insane take on business will assure you that life at your office isn’t so bad after all.

Move my cheese. I dare you. Yes, the business curmudgeon is now in residence. National layoffs and shady corporate accounting practices brought on a severe case of arthritis in my funny bone. Consumer debt, anti-mom hiring practices, a computer virus (and hockey playoffs that lasted well into May) just plain shut down my tickle reflex. This curmudgeon admits it recent business news has taken the sunshine out of my earnings forecast. This month, humor me as we look at three books that promise to reactivate the funny bone in any weary road warrior. Let’s just say they will help you bite off a new piece of cheese.

I need daycare Sometimes what ails you at work is what ails you at home. If you have ever worked from home (or thought about it) pick up Life’s Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom by Lisa Belkin. She’ll stop you before you do great damage to yourself. Belkin, the author of the witty weekly Life’s Work column in The New York Times, exposes the myths and joys of work, family and the balancing act that almost every woman tries to perform before realizing that it’s all just too much. With humor and happiness, Belkin describes the exacting way her kids and even her dog took all control from her life. They left her with a little time to work at the computer and a lot of time to clean up and make dinner for them. After Life’s Work you’ll never look at life and work the same way again.

Burn your business books The New! New Economy by Tim McEachern and Chris O’Brien is the one book you need to read to stay in business! Or not. A hilarious satire of just about every business book ever written, McEachern and O’Brien team to undermine and ridicule every business practice ever invented, touted or marketed as a “bestseller idea.” Have you ever suffered through the unqualified boredom of a marketing demographics lecture? McEachern and O’Brien have written down what you were really thinking while Consumer Insights Professionals painted a rosy picture of your demographic. (“18-29 year olds? A bunch of overspending baby nut cases. . . . 65 plus? They’re just accessing the bitterness.”) Yeah, this team says what you only thought. Forget Dilbert; he’s too tame. This is the kind of sarcasm you need to face your job day after day.

A dog’s life 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com by Mike Daisey is a memoir of a self-proclaimed dilettante’s life at Amazon.com, a time he remembers as work, play and Jeff. As he describes his first interview at Amazon: “There was a certain inescapable sameness to their responses. They seemed fixated on the words working,’ playing,’ and Jeff.’ Jeff came up constantly. I had no idea who Jeff was.” “Jeff” turns out to be founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and Daisey’s first clue that he was probably not cut out for techie Internet work. But Amazon hired him right away and the next two years of his life were spent bewitched and bedazzled by the Internet craze. Daisey’s tale is one of self-recognition in a business world gone mad. His curious, funny and slightly insane take on business will assure you that life at your office isn’t so bad after all.

Whether you’re a new graduate ready to start your first job or a seasoned professional, learning how to succeed in business can be costly both personally and professionally. Wherever you are on the ladder of success, here are four new books to help you learn the secrets for climbing to the top.

0446678147Be a Kickass Assistant Heather Beckel writes from her experience as George Stephanopoulos’ assistant during Bill Clinton’s campaign and first term. In this insightful and irreverent book, Beckel says that if you have the desire to work hard and be great at your job, she can teach you the skills necessary to succeed: organization, diplomacy, problem solving, prioritizing, time management and communication. Even if some of these skills don’t come easily to you, once you master them, they’ll be a great asset in any career path. Although this book is targeted to those starting in an assistant position, it’s also valuable for anyone hiring or managing assistants.

Career nugget: Many new graduates will find themselves starting out as assistants, and Beckel offers great clues on how to make the most of this role from giving good phone, to handling a boss who’s a jerk and coping with your own mistakes. 0814471099Organization Smarts David Brown aims his book at portable professionals people always ready to move on to a new opportunity who need to be savvy about the new organization they’re in. Whether you’re a consultant or new employee, organization smarts are what make you versatile, adaptable and effective. Brown, a professor at the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University, uses mini-cases and exercises to help professionals play and win the career-defining games of organizational life.

Career nugget: Learn how to understand the real organization, its cultures, customs and power relations. Brown teaches you to recognize what others really want for themselves and from you and explains the keys to establishing a credible reputation, remembering that some of it is shaped by other players, not just by your own actions. 0743213637Promoting Yourself Here are 52 lessons for getting to the top and staying there from Hal Lancaster, who recently retired from his post as The Wall Street Journal’s popular career columnist. In these succinct and easy-to-read lessons, Lancaster addresses many everyday business situations, including managing a hostile crew, surviving a new boss, going over the boss’ head and adapting to continual turmoil. For those in dead-end jobs, the author gives pointers on writing and posting resumes and pursuing alternate career paths.

Career nugget:Lancaster dismisses psychobabble and puts the emphasis on real-world experiences, drawing on the stories of managers and professionals in the trenches. These real-life accounts offer a road map for overcoming difficult on-the-job situations. When You Mean Business About Yourself Both philosophical and practical, author Ray Capp emphasizes what people can learn from successful businesses and outlines how people can capitalize on this learning to advance their goals, objectives, self-understanding, success and happiness. Companies strategize. They have clear goals, and their moves are deliberate and consistent with those goals. They know how to market themselves and what their strengths are. Capp suggests that, like successful organizations, individuals should realistically evaluate what they do best and make utilizing those skills their priority. Career nugget: Don’t believe that if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. If you’re a lemon at something, find out what you’re good at, and stop making the best of a bad situation on a long-term basis.

Whether you’re a new graduate ready to start your first job or a seasoned professional, learning how to succeed in business can be costly both personally and professionally. Wherever you are on the ladder of success, here are four new books to help you learn the secrets for climbing to the top.

Be a Kickass Assistant Heather Beckel writes from her experience as George Stephanopoulos’ assistant during Bill Clinton’s campaign and first term. In this insightful and irreverent book, Beckel says that if you have the desire to work hard and be great at your job, she can teach you the skills necessary to succeed: organization, diplomacy, problem solving, prioritizing, time management and communication. Even if some of these skills don’t come easily to you, once you master them, they’ll be a great asset in any career path. Although this book is targeted to those starting in an assistant position, it’s also valuable for anyone hiring or managing assistants.

Career nugget: Many new graduates will find themselves starting out as assistants, and Beckel offers great clues on how to make the most of this role from giving good phone, to handling a boss who’s a jerk and coping with your own mistakes. Organization Smarts David Brown aims his book at portable professionals people always ready to move on to a new opportunity who need to be savvy about the new organization they’re in. Whether you’re a consultant or new employee, organization smarts are what make you versatile, adaptable and effective. Brown, a professor at the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University, uses mini-cases and exercises to help professionals play and win the career-defining games of organizational life.

Career nugget: Learn how to understand the real organization, its cultures, customs and power relations. Brown teaches you to recognize what others really want for themselves and from you and explains the keys to establishing a credible reputation, remembering that some of it is shaped by other players, not just by your own actions. Promoting Yourself Here are 52 lessons for getting to the top and staying there from Hal Lancaster, who recently retired from his post as The Wall Street Journal’s popular career columnist. In these succinct and easy-to-read lessons, Lancaster addresses many everyday business situations, including managing a hostile crew, surviving a new boss, going over the boss’ head and adapting to continual turmoil. For those in dead-end jobs, the author gives pointers on writing and posting resumes and pursuing alternate career paths.

Career nugget:Lancaster dismisses psychobabble and puts the emphasis on real-world experiences, drawing on the stories of managers and professionals in the trenches. These real-life accounts offer a road map for overcoming difficult on-the-job situations. When You Mean Business About Yourself Both philosophical and practical, author Ray Capp emphasizes what people can learn from successful businesses and outlines how people can capitalize on this learning to advance their goals, objectives, self-understanding, success and happiness. Companies strategize. They have clear goals, and their moves are deliberate and consistent with those goals. They know how to market themselves and what their strengths are. Capp suggests that, like successful organizations, individuals should realistically evaluate what they do best and make utilizing those skills their priority. Career nugget: Don’t believe that if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. If you’re a lemon at something, find out what you’re good at, and stop making the best of a bad situation on a long-term basis.

Whether you’re a new graduate ready to start your first job or a seasoned professional, learning how to succeed in business can be costly both personally and professionally. Wherever you are on the ladder of success, here are four new books to help you learn the secrets for climbing to the top.
 

Be a Kickass Assistant Heather Beckel writes from her experience as George Stephanopoulos’ assistant during Bill Clinton’s campaign and first term. In this insightful and irreverent book, Beckel says that if you have the desire to work hard and be great at your job, she can teach you the skills necessary to succeed: organization, diplomacy, problem solving, prioritizing, time management and communication. Even if some of these skills don’t come easily to you, once you master them, they’ll be a great asset in any career path. Although this book is targeted to those starting in an assistant position, it’s also valuable for anyone hiring or managing assistants. Career nugget: Many new graduates will find themselves starting out as assistants, and Beckel offers great clues on how to make the most of this role from giving good phone, to handling a boss who’s a jerk and coping with your own mistakes.

Organization Smarts David Brown aims his book at portable professionals people always ready to move on to a new opportunity who need to be savvy about the new organization they’re in. Whether you’re a consultant or new employee, organization smarts are what make you versatile, adaptable and effective. Brown, a professor at the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University, uses mini-cases and exercises to help professionals play and win the career-defining games of organizational life. Career nugget: Learn how to understand the real organization, its cultures, customs and power relations. Brown teaches you to recognize what others really want for themselves and from you and explains the keys to establishing a credible reputation, remembering that some of it is shaped by other players, not just by your own actions.

Promoting Yourself Here are 52 lessons for getting to the top and staying there from Hal Lancaster, who recently retired from his post as The Wall Street Journal’s popular career columnist. In these succinct and easy-to-read lessons, Lancaster addresses many everyday business situations, including managing a hostile crew, surviving a new boss, going over the boss’ head and adapting to continual turmoil. For those in dead-end jobs, the author gives pointers on writing and posting resumes and pursuing alternate career paths. Career nugget:Lancaster dismisses psychobabble and puts the emphasis on real-world experiences, drawing on the stories of managers and professionals in the trenches. These real-life accounts offer a road map for overcoming difficult on-the-job situations.

When You Mean Business About Yourself Both philosophical and practical, author Ray Capp emphasizes what people can learn from successful businesses and outlines how people can capitalize on this learning to advance their goals, objectives, self-understanding, success and happiness. Companies strategize. They have clear goals, and their moves are deliberate and consistent with those goals. They know how to market themselves and what their strengths are. Capp suggests that, like successful organizations, individuals should realistically evaluate what they do best and make utilizing those skills their priority. Career nugget: Don’t believe that if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. If you’re a lemon at something, find out what you’re good at, and stop making the best of a bad situation on a long-term basis.

Whether you’re a new graduate ready to start your first job or a seasoned professional, learning how to succeed in business can be costly both personally and professionally. Wherever you are on the ladder of success, here are four new books to help you learn the secrets for climbing to the top.

Be a Kickass Assistant Heather Beckel writes from her experience as George Stephanopoulos’ assistant during Bill Clinton’s campaign and first term. In this insightful and irreverent book, Beckel says that if you have the desire to work hard and be great at your job, she can teach you the skills necessary to succeed: organization, diplomacy, problem solving, prioritizing, time management and communication. Even if some of these skills don’t come easily to you, once you master them, they’ll be a great asset in any career path. Although this book is targeted to those starting in an assistant position, it’s also valuable for anyone hiring or managing assistants.

Career nugget: Many new graduates will find themselves starting out as assistants, and Beckel offers great clues on how to make the most of this role from giving good phone, to handling a boss who’s a jerk and coping with your own mistakes. 0814471099Organization Smarts David Brown aims his book at portable professionals people always ready to move on to a new opportunity who need to be savvy about the new organization they’re in. Whether you’re a consultant or new employee, organization smarts are what make you versatile, adaptable and effective. Brown, a professor at the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University, uses mini-cases and exercises to help professionals play and win the career-defining games of organizational life.

Career nugget: Learn how to understand the real organization, its cultures, customs and power relations. Brown teaches you to recognize what others really want for themselves and from you and explains the keys to establishing a credible reputation, remembering that some of it is shaped by other players, not just by your own actions. 0743213637Promoting Yourself Here are 52 lessons for getting to the top and staying there from Hal Lancaster, who recently retired from his post as The Wall Street Journal’s popular career columnist. In these succinct and easy-to-read lessons, Lancaster addresses many everyday business situations, including managing a hostile crew, surviving a new boss, going over the boss’ head and adapting to continual turmoil. For those in dead-end jobs, the author gives pointers on writing and posting resumes and pursuing alternate career paths.

Career nugget:Lancaster dismisses psychobabble and puts the emphasis on real-world experiences, drawing on the stories of managers and professionals in the trenches. These real-life accounts offer a road map for overcoming difficult on-the-job situations. 1558539484When You Mean Business About Yourself Both philosophical and practical, author Ray Capp emphasizes what people can learn from successful businesses and outlines how people can capitalize on this learning to advance their goals, objectives, self-understanding, success and happiness. Companies strategize. They have clear goals, and their moves are deliberate and consistent with those goals. They know how to market themselves and what their strengths are. Capp suggests that, like successful organizations, individuals should realistically evaluate what they do best and make utilizing those skills their priority. Career nugget: Don’t believe that if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. If you’re a lemon at something, find out what you’re good at, and stop making the best of a bad situation on a long-term basis.

Good for you! While everyone else is running around the mall searching for the perfect gift, you are taking an easier route choosing informative and timely books to please everyone on your list. Here are six books to supply any business curmudgeon with an "I’m glad I opened this" holiday smile.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t by Jim Collins is a thought-provoking challenge to American business. The author of the best-selling Built to Last, Collins now explores the most difficult test any company faces how to take a "good" business, with average profits and satisfied stock holders, and make that company "great." Based on a study of 11 companies who made the leap and sustained greatness for more than 15 years, Good to Great is THE gift for a manager or boss who wrestles with strategy issues and wants to know how to make a change.

Another sure pick is The Chastening: Inside the Crisis that Rocked the Global Financial System and Humbled the IMF by Paul Blustein. Technically, this is a public policy book that unabashedly spills the beans on how and why the Asian financial crisis caught the International Monetary Fund with its pants down.

Compelling and immediately spell-binding, The Chastening reveals inherent weaknesses in the global financial system. A perfect gift for policy wonks and market analysts as well as anyone in international trade.

Pick up The Natural Laws of Business by Richard Koch for anyone on your list who loves to think about theoretical issues in business. Does your boss pour over The Economist each month? Have a friend who delights in reading The Harvard Business Review? This intriguing book by the author of The 80/20 Principle applies scientific insight in physics, natural sciences and economics toward business success. Its result? A thought-provoking book that exercises the brain and limbers the innovation muscle.

I know, not everyone on your holiday list thinks the future looks bright for American business. For the pragmatist in every company (and you’ll usually find them behind the door marked "Finance") buy The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Next Decade by Michael Hammer. It’s a thought-provoking, get-real-about-your-business kind of book with a "tough times are coming" approach to the next 10 years. "It’s time for business to get serious again," says Hammer. Recent weeks prove he’s right. Just for fun, grab Dictionary of the Future by Faith Popcorn and Adam Hanft for that funky someone on your shopping list. This intriguing "dictionary" is full of terms that trend guru Faith Popcorn believes will have an impact on business in the near future. The book is divided into subjects like biology and technology, demographics and new behaviors, with words and meanings listed in each subject. Do you know what a Circle of Poison is? Or where your Content Room is? Get with it! A totally fascinating sourcebook for anyone with futurist tendencies, its main drawback is that once you start browsing the pages, you won’t want to stop.

Tried and true, books on how to make a portfolio achieve better results are always popular. The 100 Best Stocks to Own in America, Seventh Edition by Gene Walden is one of those good presents to unwrap. This updated edition features easy to understand analysis of 100 time-tested stocks with a simple and clear economic presentation of each. Walden annually selects stocks with earnings and stock growth potential, consistency and a good dividend yield. His advice will guide first-time investors as well as portfolio-savvy traders in the search for a strong portfolio return.

Sharon Secor is a business writer based in Minneapolis.