Events

Booked by HooksBookEvents: Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Book: Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour
Author: Lynne Olson
Publisher: Random House, 2010

In Citizens of London, Lynne Olson has written a work of World War II history even more relevant and revealing than her acclaimed Troublesome Young Men. Here is the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman, and John Gilbert Winant. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, Olson skillfully depicts the dramatic personal journeys of these men who, determined to save Britain from Hitler, helped convince a cautious Franklin Roosevelt and a reluctant American public to support the British at a critical time.

The three—Murrow, the handsome, chain-smoking head of CBS News in Europe; Harriman, the hard-driving millionaire who ran FDR’s Lend-Lease program in London; and Winant, the shy, idealistic U.S. ambassador to Britain—formed close ties with Winston Churchill and were drawn into Churchill’s official and personal circles. So intense were their relationships with the Churchills that they all became romantically involved with members of the prime minister’s family: Harriman and Murrow with Churchill’s daughter-in-law, Pamela, and Winant with his favorite daughter, Sarah.

Others were honorary “citizens of London” as well, including the gregarious, fiercely ambitious Dwight D. Eisenhower, an obscure general who, as the first commander of American forces in Britain, was determined to do everything in his power to make the alliance a success, and Tommy Hitchcock, a world-famous polo player and World War I fighter pilot who helped save the Allies’ bombing campaign against Germany.

Citizens of London, however, is more than just the story of these Americans and the world leaders they aided and influenced. It’s an engrossing account of the transformative power of personal diplomacy and, above all, a rich, panoramic tale of two cities: Washington, D.C., a lazy Southern town slowly growing into a hub of international power, and London, a class-conscious capital transformed by the Blitz into a model of stoic grace under violent pressure and deprivation. Deeply human, brilliantly researched, and beautifully written, Citizens of London is a new triumph from an author swiftly becoming one of the finest in her field.

Book: Think Again: Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions and How to Keep it From Happening to You
Author: Sydney Finkelstein, Jo Whitehead, and Andrew Campbell
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press, 2009

Why do smart and experienced leaders make flawed, even catastrophic, decisions? Why do people keep believing they have made the right choice, even with the disastrous result staring them in the face? And how can you be sure you’re making the right decision—without the benefit of hindsight?

Sydney Finkelstein, Jo Whitehead, and Andrew Campbell show how the usually beneficial processes of the human mind can become traps when we face big decisions. The authors show how the shortcuts our brains have learned to take over millennia of evolution can derail our decision making. Think Again offers a powerful model for making better decisions, describing the key red flags to watch for and detailing the decision-making safeguards we need.

Using examples from business, politics, and history, Think Again deconstructs bad decisions, as they unfolded in real time, to show how you can avoid the same fate.

Book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Author: Daniel H. Pink
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover, 2009

PUBLIC EVENT ON FEBRUARY 17TH FEATURING DANIEL PINK
The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center – Rotunda
8:30 am – 10:30 am
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004

Event hosted by Greater Washington Board of Trade. Click here for additional information!

Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people—at work, at school, at home. It’s wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today’s world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:

*Autonomy- the desire to direct our own lives *Mastery- the urge to get better and better at something that matters *Purpose- the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Drive is bursting with big ideas— the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

Book: Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making
Author: Gary Klein
Publisher: The MIT Press, 2009

In making decisions, when should we go with our gut and when should we try to analyze every option? When should we use our intuition and when should we rely on logic and statistics? Most of us would probably agree that for important decisions, we should follow certain guidelines—gather as much information as possible, compare the options, pin down the goals before getting started. But in practice we make some of our best decisions by adapting to circumstances rather than blindly following procedures.

In Streetlights and Shadows, Gary Klein debunks the conventional wisdom about how to make decisions. He takes ten commonly accepted claims about decision making and shows that they are better suited for the laboratory than for life. The standard advice works well when everything is clear, but the tough decisions involve shadowy conditions of complexity and ambiguity. Gathering masses of information, for example, works if the information is accurate and complete—but that doesn’t often happen in the real world. (Think about the careful risk calculations that led to the downfall of the Wall Street investment houses.)

Klein offers more realistic ideas about how to make decisions in real-life settings. He provides many examples—ranging from airline pilots and weather forecasters to sports announcers and Captain Jack Aubrey in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander novels—to make his point. All these decision makers saw things that others didn’t. They used their expertise to pick up cues and to discern patterns and trends. We can make better decisions, Klein tells us, if we are prepared for complexity and ambiguity and if we will stop expecting the data to tell us everything.

Book: Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal
Author: Mark Johnson
Publisher: Harvard Business Press, 2010

This title presents a practical approach to fuel game changing growth through business model innovation. Transformational new growth remains the Holy Grail for many organizations. But a deep understanding of how great business models are made can provide the key to unlocking that growth. This landmark book describes how companies can achieve transformational growth in new markets Or, simply put, how they can seize the white space. To step out into the unknown and seize the white space requires a new language – and a framework with which to understand an existing enterprise and the white space it hopes to conquer.

This book – from Clay Christensen’s firm Innosight – is devoted to making game-changing business model innovation a possibility. Leaving the rhetoric to others, it provides the building blocks for creating business model innovation: first, by showing executives how to discover new business models and then by showing them how to bring these innovations to market. With road-tested frameworks, analytics, and diagnostics, this book gives executives everything they need to reshape their business and achieve fantastic growth. Mark Johnson is cofounder and Chairman of Innosight, an innovation-based consulting and executive-training firm focused on helping companies and institutions innovate for new growth and transformation.

Book: Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System
Author: Robert Pozen
Publisher: Wiley, 2009

Industry luminary Robert Pozen offers his insights on the future of U.S. finance.

The recent credit crisis and the resulting bailout program are unprecedented events in the financial industry. While it’s important to understand what got us here, it’s even more important to consider how we should get out. While there is little question that immediate action was required to stabilize the situation, it is now time to look for a long-term plan to reform the United States financial industry.

That is where Bob Pozen comes in. Perhaps more than anyone in the industry, Pozen commands the respect and attention of the public and private sector. In this timely guide, he outlines his vision for the new financial future and provides useful advice along the way. To Pozen, there are four high-priority problems that must be addressed, and this book puts them in perspective:

-Analyzes alternative models for government stakes in banks
-Recommends a new board structure for large financial institutions
-Examines the importance of broader Fed jurisdiction over systemic risks
-Proposes a way to revive the securitization of loans

With Too Big to Save, you’ll learn the likely future of the finance industry and understand why changes have to be made.

Book: The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama
Author: Gwen Ifill
Publisher: Doubleday, 2009

Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010
Time: 2:30 pm
Location: University of the District of Columbia/Building 44-A03
4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20008

In The Breakthrough, veteran journalist Gwen Ifill surveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on the impact of Barack Obama’s stunning presidential victory and introducing the emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power.

Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama (all interviewed for this book), and also covers numerous up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on exclusive interviews with power brokers such as President Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, his son Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict, the race/ gender clash, and the “black enough” conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history.

The Breakthrough is a remarkable look at contemporary politics and an essential foundation for understanding the future of American democracy in the age of Obama.

Book: Saving Henry: A Mother's Journey
Author: Laurie Strongin
Publisher: Hyperion, 2010

Date: Sunday, March 7, 2010
Time: 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Location: Politics and Prose Bookstore
5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20008

For additional information, please visit www.savinghenry.com

“A heartbreaking story, exquisitely told . . . Laurie Strongin’s integrity, humanity, and wisdom are an inspiration to the rest of us.”
—David Shenk, author of The Forgetting

Saving Henry is the eye-opening and inspiring story of how far a family will go to save the life of their child. Laurie Strongin’s son Henry was born with a heart condition that was operable, but which proved to be a precursor for a rare, almost-always fatal illness: Fanconi anemia. Deciding to pursue every avenue that might provide a cure, Laurie and her husband signed on for a brand new procedure that combined in vitro fertilization with genetic testing to produce a baby without the disease, who could be a stem cell donor for Henry. As Laurie puts it: “I believe in love and science, nothing more and nothing less.”

Laurie and her husband endured nine failed courses of the procedure before giving up. But Saving Henry is also about hope. It is the story of Henry, the feisty little boy who loved Batman, Cal Ripken Jr., and root beer-flavored anesthesia, and who captivated everyone with his spunk and positive attitude. When the nurses came to take blood samples, Henry brandished his toy sword and said, “Bring it on!” When he lost his hair after a chemo treatment, he declared, “Hey, I look like Michael Jordan!”

Laurie became a fervent advocate for stem cell research, working with policymakers and the scientific community to bring attention to Henry’s case and to the groundbreaking research that could save many lives. Henry’s courage and bravery inspired nurses, doctors, friends, and family. Saving Henry is the story of one family’s search for a cure, and the long-lasting scientific impact their amazing little boy has had.

Book: The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education
Author: Craig M. Mullaney
Publisher: The Penguin Press HC, 2009

A West Point grad, Rhodes Scholar, and Army Ranger recounts his unique education and struggles with the hard lessons that only war can teach.

One haunting afternoon on Losano Ridge in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Captain Craig Mullaney and his infantry platoon were caught in a deadly firefight with Al Qaeda fighters, when a message came over the radio: one of his soldiers had been killed by the enemy.

Mullaney’s education,the four years he spent at West Point, and the harrowing test of Ranger School, readied him for a career in the Army. His subsequent experience as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford couldn’t have been further from the Army and his working-class roots, and yet the unorthodox education he received there would be surprisingly relevant as a combat leader.

But despite all his preparation, the hardest questions remained. When the call came to lead his platoon into battle and earn his soldiers’ salutes, would he be ready? Was his education sufficient for the unforgiving minutes he’d face?

Years later, after that excruciating experience in Afghanistan, he would return to the United States to teach history to future Navy and Marine Corps officers at the Naval Academy. He had been in their position once, not long ago. How would he use his own life-changing experience to prepare them?

Written with unflinching honesty,The Unforgiving Minute is an unforgettable portrait of a young soldier grappling with the weight of his hard-earned knowledge, while at last coming to terms with what it really means to be a man.

Book: Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe
Author: Gillian Tett
Publisher: Free Press, 2009

From award-winning Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, who enraged Wall Street leaders with her newsbreaking warnings of a crisis more than a year ahead of the curve, Fool’s Gold tells the astonishing unknown story at the heart of the 2008 meltdown.
Drawing on exclusive access to J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a tightly bonded team of bankers known on Wall Street as the “Morgan Mafia,” as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of other key players, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Tett brings to life in gripping detail how the Morgan team’s bold ideas for a whole new kind of financial alchemy helped to ignite a revolution in banking, and how that revolution escalated wildly out of control.

The deeply reported and lively narrative takes readers behind the scenes, to the inner sanctums of elite finance and to the secretive reaches of what came to be known as the “shadow banking” world. The story begins with the intense Morgan brainstorming session in 1994 beside a pool in Boca Raton, where the team cooked up a dazzling new idea for the exotic financial product known as credit derivatives. That idea would rip around the banking world, catapult Morgan to the top of the turbocharged derivatives trade, and fuel an extraordinary banking boom that seemed to have unleashed banks from ages-old constraints of risk.

But when the Morgan team’s derivatives dream collided with the housing boom, and was perverted — through hubris, delusion, and sheer greed — by titans of banking that included Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and the thundering herd at Merrill Lynch — even as J.P. Morgan itself stayed well away from the risky concoctions others were peddling — catastrophe followed. Tett’s access to Dimon and the J.P. Morgan leaders who so skillfully steered their bank away from the wild excesses of others sheds invaluable light not only on the untold story of how they engineered their bank’s escape from carnage but also on how possible it was for the larger banking world, regulators, and rating agencies to have spotted, and heeded, the terrible risks of a meltdown.

A tale of blistering brilliance and willfully blind ambition, Fool’s Gold is both a rare journey deep inside the arcane and wildly competitive world of high finance and a vital contribution to understanding how the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression was perpetrated.

Book: From Every End of This Earth: 13 Families and the New Lives They Made in America
Author: Steven V. Roberts
Publisher: Harper, 2009

New York Times bestselling author Steven V. Roberts follows the stories of thirteen immigrant families in From Every End of This Earth, a poignant and eye-opening look at immigration in America today. He captures the voices of those living the promise of a new land—and the difficulties of starting over among strangers whose suspicions increasingly outweigh their open-armed acceptance. As the political debate rages on, Roberts sheds light on the enormous contributions immigrants continue to make to the fabric and future of America.

Book: Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking: Uncork Your Creative Juices
Author: Michael J. Gelb
Publisher: Running Press, 2010

Date: Monday, March 15, 2010
Time: 6:00-8:00 pm
Location: Zola Wine & Kitchen
505 9th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005

Tickets are $60 and include wine tasting, hors d’oeuvres and a copy of Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking

Buy Your Ticket Today!

There is much advanced praise for the book including…..

“Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking: Uncork Your Creative Juices is one of the most practical and useful books about a consumer’s experience in dealing with the subject of wine that I have ever read. There is an enormous amount of terrific, and more importantly, reliable and useful information in this book by Michael Gelb. Highly recommended.” – Robert Parker Jr., The Wine Advocate

“Few things in life are as invigorating as great wine and bold ideas. And only Michael Gelb could combine the two into a single masterful book. Uncork Your Creative Juices is an engaging and inspiring guide for everyone who wants to drink well and think big.” — Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind

“During breaks in our off-site meeting, everyone jumped on their cell phones to check messages, or logged into email. It was surprising, then, to see the cell phones turned off and the laptops put away as we enjoyed Michael’s wine-tasting and poetry exercise. No one complained about another lame team-building program, or missing a message. Instead, we all engaged in conversation that
revealed more of ourselves, creating deeper bonds of trust. I’ve forgotten most of what we learned during the off-site’s other sessions, but I haven’t forgotten the poetry, or that evening’s conversations. Since then, I’ve recommended Michael’s unique approach to unleashing creativity to many colleagues, and can’t wait
to take the refresher course.” – Richard Eckel, Microsoft

Book: Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being
Author: George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton
Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2010

In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people—facing the same economic circumstances—would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration—and of Identity Economics.

Identity economics is a new way to understand people’s decisions—at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don’t; why some schools succeed and others don’t; why some cities and towns don’t invest in their futures—and much, much more.

Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People’s notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people’s identity—their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be—may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives. And the limits placed by society on people’s identity can also be crucial determinants of their economic well-being.

Book: Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations (The Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)
Author: Howard Jones
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009

In this examination of Union and Confederate foreign relations during the Civil War from both European and American perspectives, Howard Jones demonstrates that the consequences of the conflict between North and South reached far beyond American soil.

Jones explores a number of themes, including the international economic and political dimensions of the war, the North’s attempts to block the South from winning foreign recognition as a nation, Napoleon III’s meddling in the war and his attempt to restore French power in the New World, and the inability of Europeans to understand the integrated nature of slavery and union, resulting in their tendency to interpret the war as a senseless struggle between a South too large and populous to have its independence denied and a North too obstinate to give up on the preservation of the Union. Most of all, Jones explores the horrible nature of a war that attracted outside involvement as much as it repelled it.

Written in a narrative style that relates the story as its participants saw it play out around them, Blue and Gray Diplomacy depicts the complex set of problems faced by policy makers from Richmond and Washington to London, Paris, and St. Petersburg.

Book: Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War
Author: Marc Egnal
Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2009

Clash of Extremes takes on the reigning orthodoxy that the American Civil War was waged over high moral principles. Marc Egnal contends that economics, more than any other factor, moved the country to war in 1861.

Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Egnal shows that between 1820 and 1850, patterns of trade and production drew the North and South together and allowed sectional leaders to broker a series of compromises. After midcentury, however, all that changed as the rise of the Great Lakes economy reoriented Northern trade along east-west lines. Meanwhile, in the South, soil exhaustion, concerns about the country’s westward expansion, and growing ties between the Upper South and the free states led many cotton planters to contemplate secession. The war that ensued was truly a “clash of extremes.”

Sweeping from the 1820s through Reconstruction and filled with colorful portraits of leading individuals, Clash of Extremes emphasizes economics while giving careful consideration to social conflicts, ideology, and the rise of the antislavery movement. The result is a bold reinterpretation that will challenge the way we think about the Civil War.

Book: Leadership Without Excuses: How to Create Accountability and High-Performance (Instead of Just Talking About It)
Author: Jeff Grimshaw and Gregg Baron
Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 2010

Warning: This book will change the way you lead and succeed—no excuses!

“There’s no accountability!” You probably say it every time your people fail to deliver the results on which you’ve staked enormous resources—not to mention your reputation. And you’re probably right. The lack of accountability is one of the greatest drags on any business.

Leadership Without Excuses helps you take control of this chronic problem and launch a leadership program focuses on engaging employees, executing strategy, and managing ethics and liability. The authors explain how to achieve this first by dividing your workforce into three neat categories:

Saints, employees who perform well under any conditions
Sinners, the lost causes who don’t belong in a work environment to begin with
Save-ables, the vast majority of any workforce, whose performance depends on the quality of their leader
The authors then arm you with know-how for instilling a sense of accountability in the Save-ables. You’ll immediately notice a dramatic increase in employee performance, making it easier to ensure SOX compliance, align the workforce with a new strategy, increase sales, or turn around problem teams.

This game-changing guide helps end the excuses and puts your people on the path to quick, effective, and continuous success.

Book: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
Author: Liaquat Ahamed
Publisher: Penguin, 2009

“A magisterial work…You can’t help thinking about the economic crisis we’re living through now.” —_The New York Times Book Review_

It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person’s or government’s control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of that economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades. As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, their fallibility, and the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.

Book: Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon
Author: Michael O'Brien
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010

Early in 1815, Louisa Catherine Adams and her young son left St. Petersburg in a heavy Russian carriage and set out on a difficult journey to meet her husband, John Quincy Adams, in Paris. She traveled through the snows of eastern Europe, down the Baltic coast to Prussia, across the battlefields of Germany, and into a France then experiencing the tumultuous events of Napoleon’s return from Elba. Along the way, she learned what the long years of Napoleon’s wars had done to Europe, what her old friends in the royal court in Berlin had experienced during the French occupation, how it felt to have her life threatened by reckless soldiers, and how to manage fear.

The journey was a metaphor for a life spent crossing borders: born in London in 1775, she had grown up partly in France, and in 1797 had married into the most famous of American political dynasties and become the daughter-in-law of John and Abigail Adams.

The prizewinning historian Michael O’Brien reconstructs for the first time Louisa Adams’s extraordinary passage. An evocative history of the experience of travel in the days of carriages and kings, Mrs. Adams in Winter offers a moving portrait of a lady, her difficult marriage, and her conflicted sense of what it meant to be a woman caught between worlds.

Book: The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs
Author: Michael Belfiore
Publisher: Smithsonian, 2009

The first-ever inside look at DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—the maverick and controversial group whose futuristic work has had amazing civilian and military applications, from the Internet to GPS to driverless cars

America’s greatest idea factory isn’t Bell Labs, Silicon Valley, or MIT’s Media Lab. It’s the secretive, Pentagon-led agency known as DARPA. Founded by Eisenhower in response to Sputnik and the Soviet space program, DARPA mixes military officers with sneaker-wearing scientists, seeking paradigm-shifting ideas in varied fields—from energy, robotics, and rockets to peopleless operating rooms, driverless cars, and planes that can fly halfway around the world in just hours. DARPA gave birth to the Internet, GPS, and mind-controlled robotic arms. Its geniuses define future technology for the military and the rest of us.

Michael Belfiore was given unprecedented access to write this first-ever popular account of DARPA. Visiting research sites across the country, he watched scientists in action and talked to the creative, fearlessly ambitious visionaries working for and with DARPA. Much of DARPA’s work is classified, and this book is full of material that has barely been reported in the general media. In fact, DARPA estimates that only 2 percent of Americans know much of anything about the agency. This fascinating read demonstrates that DARPA isn’t so much frightening as it is inspiring—it is our future.

Book: Perfectly Imperfect
Author: Lee Woodruff and Bob Woodruff
Publisher: Random House, 2009

“You can tell a woman’s whole life story from the possessions in her jewelry box. Like reading a palm, you can trace the points where her life has intersected with memorable events, people, places, and loves. You can speculate on the essence of her personality, all from what she has accumulated in that box.”—from Perfectly Imperfect

In her acclaimed first book, In an Instant, Lee Woodruff, along with her husband, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, wrote eloquently and honestly about the struggles they faced together as Bob recovered from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Iraq. Now, with the same candor and clarity, Lee Woodruff chronicles her life as wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend.

Woodruff’s deeply personal and, at times, uproariously funny stories highlight such universal topics as family, marriage, friends, and how life never seems to go as planned. On raising teenagers: “Now with a boy and girl on the precipice of serious adolescence, the bathroom door is sealed tighter than a government nuclear testing ground.” On her changing body: “Over the last ten years my own knees had begun to form those dreaded smiley faces, sagging underneath.” How she copes with tragedy: “Swimming surrounds me in the velvet wet of a bluish green world where I can dive deep down and sob with no trace.” Even her sense of style: “I’ve always been more Leave It to Beaver than Sex in the City.”

In a voice that is fresh, irreverently funny, and irresistible, Lee Woodruff traces the quiet moments and memorable events that have shaped her life in progress. Perfectly Imperfect is the testimonial of a woman who embraces the chaos of her surroundings, discovers the splendor of life’s flaws, and accepts that perfection is as impossible to achieve as a spotless kitchen floor.

Book: How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy
Author: Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames
Publisher: Crown Business, 2009

Has capitalism failed?

Is it fundamentally greedy and immoral, enabling the rich to get richer? Are free markets Darwinian places where the most ruthless crush smaller competitors, where vital products and services are priced beyond the ability of many people to afford them?

Capitalism is the world’s greatest economic success story. It is the most effective way to provide for the needs of people and foster the democratic and moral values of a free society. Yet the worst recession in decades has widely—and understandably—shaken people’s faith in our system. Even before the current crisis, capitalism received a “bad rap” from a culture ambivalent about free markets and wealth creation. This crisis of confidence is preventing a full recognition of how we got into the mess we’re in today—and why capitalism continues to be the best route to prosperity.

How Capitalism Will Save Us transcends labels such as “conservative” and “liberal” by showing how the economy really works. When free people in free markets have energy to solve problems and meet the needs and wants of others, they turn scarcity into abundance and develop the innovations that are the foremost drivers of economic growth. The freedom of democratic capitalism is, for example, what enabled Henry Ford to take a plaything of the rich—the car—and transform it into something affordable to working people.

In the capitalist system, economic growth doesn’t mean more of the same—grinding out a few more widgets every year. It’s about change to increase overall wealth and give more people the chance for a better life.

Book: Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War (Vintage Civil War Library)
Author: Jacqueline Jones
Publisher: Vintage, 2009

In this masterful portrait of life in Savannah before, during, and after the Civil War, prize-winning historian Jacqueline Jones transports readers to the balmy, raucous streets of that fabled Southern port city. Here is a subtle and rich social history that weaves together stories of the everyday lives of blacks and whites, rich and poor, men and women from all walks of life confronting the transformations that would alter their city forever. Deeply researched and vividly written, Saving Savannah is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the Civil War years.

Book: Happiness at Work: A Top B-School Professor Shows How to be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful--No Matter What
Author: Srikumar Rao
Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 2010

In these tough times, there are few people who are completely happy with the current conditions. From business executives to the everyday Joe or Jane, everyone seems to be going through a rough economic and personal crunch. But acclaimed business school Professor Srikumar Rao says that we can learn to create joy no matter what else may be going on around us.

Rao shows you that it isn’t the negative thing that happens to you that causes your unhappiness, it’s how you see it. Happiness at Work is a thought-provoking new title that moves the mind away from negativity and forces you to resist labeling situations as “bad”, but rather seeing them as neutral.

The Happiness Choice provides:

*Surprising ways of looking at change and problem-solving *Exercises that shift one’s perspective

Learn the vital wisdom necessary to achieving a joyful, successful life as you define it through greater resilience and a strong inner core. Get it now with The Happiness Choice.

Book: The Business of Happiness: 6 Secrets to Extraordinary Success in Life and Work
Author: Ted Leonsis
Publisher: Regnery Press, 2010

When the plane he was on prepared for a crash landing, Ted Leonsis asked himself the crucial question, If today is my last day on earth—will I die happy?. . . and realized the answer was no. Despite having achieved massive business success—he was a self-made multi-millionaire at the age of twenty-seven—he realized he would die unfulfilled. He told God that if he survived, he would turn his life around, give back more than he took, and pursue happiness. After walking off that plane, he got to work.

In The Business of Happiness, Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals and former group president and vice chairman of AOL, shares the six secrets of happiness he discovered since that fateful plane ride. Treating happiness as a goal like any other, he made a list of what he thought would make him happy, and made a plan to achieve his goals. Along the way he discovered an incredible truth—business or financial success doesn’t bring happiness, but happiness can bring you business and financial success.

Through research studies, personal stories, and anecdotal evidence from celebrities, famous athletes, and influential businessmen, Ted reveals the six secrets to achieving true happiness—and how they make success almost inevitable. Showing people exactly how they can apply the six secrets to their work, at home, and in their personal lives, Leonsis also reveals how some of the most successful and happy people today—Bono, Michael Jordan, Steve Case—have put these secrets into practice for themselves.

Dynamic, inspiring, and unique, The Business of Happiness proves that anyone can be more successful and happier, including you.

Book: Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top
Author: Andrew Winston
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press, 2009

When the economy turns rough, many companies sideline their green business initiatives. That’s a big mistake. In “Green Recovery”, Andrew Winston shows that no company can afford to wait for the downturn to ease before going green. Green initiatives ratchet up your company’s resource efficiency, creativity, and employee motivation. They save energy, waste, and money, preserving precious capital-and give precise focus to your innovation efforts and strategic priorities. Part manifesto and part how-to guide, this concise and engaging book provides a road map for using green initiatives to deliver short-term gains and position your company for long-term strategic growth. “Green Recovery” is your guide to establishing your competitive positioning in difficult times and emerging even stronger into a vastly changed economy.

Book: Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World
Author: Linda Tarr-Whelan
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009

This is the story of how and why women’s full participation in leadership matters is still seemingly a well-kept secret. To have the future we all want, women must play a more robust role in setting priorities and allocating resources. “Women Lead the Way” presents argument, research, and tactical guidance to help readers wedge the door open and bring more women through and up.

The evidence from around the world validates the findings of the United Nations General Assembly in 1995, which set a baseline of at least 30 per cent women at the table as a prerequisite for genuine partnership and lasting, positive change in the international arena. We see the same phenomena in the business world. More women as corporate officers and members of boards of directors results in stronger financial performance. At 30 per cent representation, we see concrete, positive outcomes for everyone not just women including increased shareholder value, more flexible management approaches, a broader definition of success, and better bottom lines. More women at the table means more progress for all of us.

This book helps readers get started on a win-win women-led strategy to bring about the leadership balance we all need. You will learn how to do away with cultural baggage that boxes us in, gain a clear understanding of how and why Women Lead the Way, and receive practical, road-tested tactics to help you and other women step up and into leadership.

‘Linda has produced the first seriously practical guide to stepping up to leadership. Her clear, concise, down to earth approach challenges us all to keep moving forward and leading the way. Any woman [or man] reading this book can be left in no doubt of what needs doing and more importantly, how to do it. A must read’ – Rt Hon Baroness Catherine Ashton, EU Trade Commissioner [the first woman British Commissioner and first woman Trade Commissioner]. ‘Straightforward, empathetic and balanced, this compelling guide tells the stories that women positively engaged in changing the world will recognise. Though American in background, the messages are international and well researched. From the time of Hypatia of Alexandria through to the present day, women like Linda Tarr-Whelan do make a difference. Let’s listen’ – Dr Melissa Hardie, Director, The Hypatia Trust Honorary Fellow, Exeter University.

Book: Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
Author: Scott Belsky
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover, 2010

How the world’s leading innovators push their ideas to fruition, time and time again.

Edison famously said that genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. Ideas for new businesses, solutions to the world’s problems, and artistic breakthroughs are common, but great execution is rare.

According to Scott Belsky, the capacity to make ideas happen can be strengthened by anyone willing to build their organizational habits and harness the forces of community. That’s why he founded Behance, a company that helps creative people and teams across industries develop these skills.

Belsky has spent six years studying the habits of especially productive creative people and teams-the ones who make their ideas happen time and time again. After interviewing hundreds of successful creatives, he has compiled their most powerful-and often counterintuitive-practices, such as:

• Generate ideas in moderation and act without conviction
• Reduce all projects to just three primary components
• Encourage fighting within your team
• Seek competition and share ideas liberally

In an increasingly flexible and entrepreneurial environment, creative minds have the opportunity (and responsibility) to solve and change industries-but they can only do that if they overcome the obstacles. While many of us obsess about discovering great new ideas, Belsky shows why it’s better to develop the capacity to make ideas happen-a capacity that endures over time.

Book: Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
Author: Winifred Gallagher
Publisher: The Penguin Press HC, 2009

Winifred Gallagher revolutionizes our understanding of attention and the creation of the interested life

In Rapt, acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher makes the radical argument that the quality of your life largely depends on what you choose to pay attention to and how you choose to do it. Gallagher grapples with provocative questions—Can we train our focus? What’s different about the way creative people pay attention? Why do we often zero in on the wrong factors when making big decisions, like where to move?—driving us to reconsider what we think we know about attention.

Gallagher looks beyond sound bites on our proliferating BlackBerries and the increased incidence of ADD in children to the discoveries of neuroscience and psychology and the wisdom of home truths, profoundly altering and expanding the contemporary conversation on attention and its power. Science’s major contribution to the study of attention has been the discovery that its basic mechanism is an either/or process of selection. That we focus may be a biological necessity— research now proves we can process only a little information at a time, or about 173 billion bits over an average life—but the good news is that we have much more control over our focus than we think, which gives us a remarkable yet underappreciated capacity to influence our experience. As suggested by the expression “pay attention,” this cognitive currency is a finite resource that we must learn to spend wisely.

In Rapt, Gallagher introduces us to a diverse cast of characters—artists and ranchers, birders and scientists—who have learned to do just that and whose stories are profound lessons in the art of living the interested life. No matter what your quotient of wealth, looks, brains, or fame, increasing your satisfaction means focusing more on what really interests you and less on what doesn’t. In asserting its groundbreaking thesis—the wise investment of your attention is the single most important thing you can do to improve your well-being—Rapt yields fresh insights into the nature of reality and what it means to be fully alive.

Book: In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic
Author: David Wessel
Publisher: Crown Business, 2009

That was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s vow as the worst financial panic in more than fifty years gripped the world and he struggled to avoid the once unthinkable: a repeat of the Great Depression. Brilliant but temperamentally cautious, Bernanke researched and wrote about the causes of the Depression during his career as an academic. Then when thrust into a role as one of the most important people in the world, he was compelled to boldness by circumstances he never anticipated.

The president of the United States can respond instantly to a missile attack with America’s military might, but he cannot respond to a financial crisis with real money unless Congress acts. The Fed chairman can. Bernanke did. Under his leadership the Fed spearheaded the biggest government intervention in more than half a century and effectively became the fourth branch of government, with no direct accountability to the nation’s voters.

Believing that the economic catastrophe of the 1930s was largely the fault of a sluggish and wrongheaded Federal Reserve, Bernanke was determined not to repeat that epic mistake. In this penetrating look inside the most powerful economic institution in the world, David Wessel illuminates its opaque and undemocratic inner workings, while revealing how the Bernanke Fed led the desperate effort to prevent the world’s financial engine from grinding to a halt.

In piecing together the fullest, most authoritative, and alarming picture yet of this decisive moment in our nation’s history, In Fed We Trust answers the most critical questions. Among them:

• What did Bernanke and his team at the Fed know–and what took them by surprise? Which of their actions stretched–or even ripped through–the Fed’s legal authority? Which chilling numbers and indicators made them feel they had no choice?

• What were they thinking at pivotal moments during the race to sell Bear Stearns, the unsuccessful quest to save Lehman Brothers, and the virtual nationalization of AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac? What were they saying to one another when, as Bernanke put it to Wessel: “We came very close to Depression 2.0”?

• How well did Bernanke, former treasury secretary Hank Paulson, and then New York Fed president Tim Geithner perform under intense pressure?

• How did the crisis prompt a reappraisal of the once-impregnable reputation of Alan Greenspan?

In Fed We Trust is a breathtaking and singularly perceptive look at a historic episode in American and global economic history.

Book: Tocqueville's Discovery of America
Author: Leo Damrosch
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010

Alexis de Tocqueville is more quoted than read; commentators across the political spectrum invoke him as an oracle who defined America and its democracy for all times. But in fact his masterpiece, Democracy in America, was the product of a young man’s open-minded experience of America at a time of rapid change. In Tocqueville’s Discovery of America, the prizewinning biographer Leo Damrosch retraces Tocqueville’s nine-month journey through the young nation in 1831–1832, illuminating how his enduring ideas were born of imaginative interchange with America and Americans, and painting a vivid picture of Jacksonian America.

Damrosch shows that Tocqueville found much to admire in the dynamism of American society and in its egalitarian ideals. But he was offended by the ethos of grasping materialism and was convinced that the institution of slavery was bound to give rise to a tragic civil war.

Drawing on documents and letters that have never before appeared in English, as well as on a wide range of scholarship, Tocqueville’s Discovery of America brings the man, his ideas, and his world to startling life.

Book: This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
Author: Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff
Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2009

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing—and recovering—their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, “this time is different”—claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. This book proves that premise wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes—from medieval currency debasements to today’s subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much—or how little—we have learned.

Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts—as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur.

An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.

Book: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Author: T.J. Stiles
Publisher: Knopf, 2009

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism.

Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. Lincoln consulted him on steamship strategy during the Civil War; Jay Gould was first his uneasy ally and then sworn enemy; and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States, was his spiritual counselor. We see Vanderbilt help to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation—in fact, as T. J. Stiles elegantly argues, Vanderbilt did more than perhaps any other individual to create the economic world we live in today.

In The First Tycoon, Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore’s personal life. It is a sweeping, fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man. Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business models. He was an unschooled fistfighter who came to command the respect of New York’s social elite. And he was a father who struggled with a gambling-addicted son, a husband who was loving yet abusive, and, finally, an old man who was obsessed with contacting the dead.

The First Tycoon is the exhilarating story of a man and a nation maturing together: the powerful account of a man whose life was as epic and complex as American history itself.

Book: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Author: Simon Sinek
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover, 2009

Why do you do what you do?

Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and moer profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?

People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. It was their natural ability to start with why that enabled them to inspire those around them and to achieve remarkable things.

In studying the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way — and it’s the complete opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be lead, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. WHY is not money or profit— those are always results. WHY does your organization exist? WHY does it do the things it does? WHY do customers really buy from one company or another? WHY are people loyal to some leaders, but not others?

Starting with WHY works in big business and small business, in the nonprofit world and in politics. Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And the people who follow them don’t do so because they have to; they follow because they want to.

Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire. This book is for anyone who wants to inspire others or who wants to find someone to inspire them.

Book: The Good Soldiers
Author: David Finkel
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009

It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. “Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,” he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them.

Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way.

What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.

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