BUSINESS BOOKS
Gaining insights from others' lives
Three books prove that life stories and anecdotes are rarely told without agendas but wisdom can be found, regardless.
Posted on Mon, Jun. 09, 2008
BY RICHARD PACHTER
I used to love reading biographies and autobiographies when I was younger, but maybe I'm a little jaded now. Everyone seems to have an ax to grind, an angle to play, a story to spin and a point to make. Understand, though I still find it instructive to read of other's lives and gain insight from their tales, and reading with a slightly jaundiced eye may actually be a bit of an advantage, like having a built-in bovine excrement detector. Here are several new books that recently met my skeptical gaze.
How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets. Portfolio. 320 pages.
Felix Dennis cut a single with John Lennon back in the late sixties, when Oz, the magazine he co-edited, was shut down and censored by the British government. He went on to publish a super-successful guide to kung-fu (during the early seventies craze) and a bunch of computer publications, then started Maxim and several other ''lad books,'' featuring gadgets, lifestyle tips and nearly nude photo layouts of young women. He's since sold most of the magazines, but now publishes The Week, a terrific compendium of newspaper and magazine stories.
His book, not surprisingly, was a big hit when it came out in Britain and is set for release in the states later this week. Dennis, as you might expect, is quite full of it. But he's very self aware, and pokes fun at himself throughout the winding narrative. However, he freely offers advice on nearly every page, on things that worked for him and should certainly do so for you, too. Perhaps, but Dennis's entertaining grape-fueled bloviation wears a bit thin on the page, though his poetry is charming, in a Hallmark kind of way. A long and large dinner, however, with Dennis holding court and pouring a varied selection of wines, is probably the best medium for this distended, onanistic exercise.
Good Guys and Bad Guys: Behind the Scenes with the Saints and Scoundrels of American Business (and Everything in Between). Joe Nocera. Portfolio. 304 pages.
Joe Nocera, now of the New York Times, has been profiling business figures for about 25 years in a variety of publications and this ''greatest hits'' collection contains a terrific selection of those profiles, with a few mash-ups combining several stories originally done years apart. He also offers fresh impressions of profiles done decades ago, including some reappraisals of folks like Michael Milken and Steve Jobs.
In addition to the personal profiles, there are lots of asides and take-outs, including some interesting observations on customer service, outsourcing, securities fraud and more. Unlike reporters, columnists are allowed to report, analyze and opine, and Nocera does all of that quite well. He's also unafraid of admitting to any limitations or lack of expertise, a refreshing bit of all too rare honesty.
Inside Steve's Brain. Leander Kahney. Portfolio. 304 pages.
As a veteran Mac user, I'll concede that many of my partisans display cult-like symptoms and Wired's Leander Kahney Cult of The Mac blog (http://cultofmac.com/) is one of the better resources for all things Apple. The company's CEO, Steve Jobs, is a ready subject for journalists and has even attracted a gifted impersonator, ''Fake Steve Jobs,'' whose irreverent blog was revealed to be the work of a Forbes editor.
Kahney, though, manages a deft virtual Vulcan mind-meld with Jobs and the resulting book is the best approximation of ''How to Do Business the Steve Jobs Way'' until the real thing comes along. (Don't hold your breath waiting for that one, though.)
To receive business book reviews by e-mail or join the Business Monday Book Club, e-mail Richard Pachter at rap@WordsonWords.com. To read more of Pachter's musings, go to www.richardpachter.com or read his weekly personal finance blog, The Savings Account at http://www.moli.com/
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