Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Digest

On the Shelf

By WASHINGTON POST
Published January 23, 2007

Reviews and tidbits about biz books

More Than You Know

By Michael J. Mauboussin Columbia, $27.95, 268 pages

This is a wonderfully thoughtful and insightful book on how to think about markets and investing. Mauboussin, chief investment strategist at Legg Mason, draws heavily from behavioral economics, complexity theory, and natural and social science to explain why following the prescriptions of theoretical finance won't get you very rich. You'll learn about running with the herd, thinking short- and long-term at the same time and looking for low-probability, high-payoff events. These short essays are sophisticated and accessible, intriguing and entertaining.

Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post

Wikinomics

By Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams Penguin, $25.95, 320 pages

Since the technology bust of 2000, people have become rightly skeptical of hyperbolic claims that the Internet has changed everything. But now come strategy consultants Tapscott and Williams with a fresh take on the now-discredited theme, and they may be on to something. The premise of the book is that the costly and frictionless networking unleashed by the Web provides better, cheaper ways for businesses to do all sorts of creative things - from writing an encyclopedia, creating software and finding gold to unlocking the human genome and designing motorcycles. Their pitch is that not only is top-down management giving way to horizontal collaboration, but that traditional corporate boundaries are melting away and, with them, the fixation on secrecy and patents. Even with its occasional overreaching, this is an intriguing and important book that belongs on your shelf next to The Wisdom of Crowds and Blink.

Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post

[Last modified January 22, 2007, 23:53:19]