What are your top five must-read non-fiction books?

Similar questions: top must read non fiction books.

Top Five 1. The Bible 2. 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is Number 37) - Bernard Goldberg 3.

Freakonomics - Steven Levitt 4. The World Is Flat Updated and Expanded: A Brief story of the Twenty-first Century - Tom Friedman 5. Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom Sources: Personal Experience... dmizesr's Recommendations Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the dden Side of Everything Amazon List Price: $25.95 Used from: $11.95 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 1138 reviews) .

My top 5 are the following: (in no particular order) 1. Innovators Dilema The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton Christensen What do the Honda Supercub, Intel's 8088 processor, and hydraulic excavators have in common? They are all examples of disruptive technologies that helped to redefine the competitive landscape of their respective markets.

These products did not come about as the result of successful companies carrying out sound business practices in established markets. In The Innovator's Dilemma, author Clayton M. Christensen shows how these and other products cut into the low end of the marketplace and eventually evolved to displace high-end competitors and their reigning technologies.At the heart of The Innovator's Dilemma is how a successful company with established products keeps from being pushed aside by newer, cheaper products that will, over time, get better and become a serious threat.

Christensen writes that even the best-managed companies, in spite of their attention to customers and continual investment in new technology, are susceptible to failure no matter what the industry, be it hard drives or consumer retailing. Succinct and clearly written, The Innovator's Dilemma is an important book that belongs on every manager's bookshelf.2. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell From Publishers Weekly The premise of this facile piece of pop sociology has built-in appeal: little changes can have big effects; when small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or "tipping point" is reached, changing the world.

Gladwell's thesis that ideas, products, messages and behaviors "spread just like viruses do" remains a metaphor as he follows the growth of "word-of-mouth epidemics" triggered with the help of three pivotal types. These are Connectors, sociable personalities who bring people together; Mavens, who like to pass along knowledge; and Salesmen, adept at persuading the unenlightened.(Paul Revere, for example, was a Maven and a Connector). Gladwell's applications of his "tipping point" concept to current phenomena--such as the drop in violent crime in New York, the rebirth of Hush Puppies suede shoes as a suburban mall favorite, teenage suicide patterns and the efficiency of small work units--may arouse controversy.

For example, many parents may be alarmed at his advice on drugs: since teenagers' experimentation with drugs, including cocaine, seldom leads to hardcore use, he contends, "We have to stop fighting this kind of experimentation. We have to accept it and even embrace it." While it offers a smorgasbord of intriguing snippets summarizing research on topics such as conversational patterns, infants' crib talk, judging other people's character, cheating habits in schoolchildren, memory sharing among families or couples, and the dehumanizing effects of prisons, this volume betrays its roots as a series of articles for the New Yorker, where Gladwell is a staff writer: his trendy material feels bloated and insubstantial in book form.

Agent, Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit. Major ad/promo.(Mar.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.3. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore Author Geoffrey Moore makes the case that high-tech products require marketing strategies that differ from those in other industries.

S chasm theory describes how high-tech products initially sell well, mainly to a technically literate customer base, but then hit a lull as marketing professionals try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers. This pattern, says Moore, is unique to the high-tech industry. Moore suggests remedies for the problem that can help businesses meet their long-term goals.

He coaches marketing professionals on how to move slowly through the gulf, teaching them to create profiles and target specific segments of the population rather than trying to plow right into the mainstream. He cites examples of successful chasm crossings by such companies as Apple, Tandem, Oracle, and Sun, showing what they all had in common and exposing the different weaknesses in their strategies. Moore also assigns responsibility for success to programmers and developers by suggesting they design a "whole product model.

" Here, because integration tasks are daunting to the mainstream market, all the components of a technological product must be in one package. Moore also describes strategies for competing with rival companies and assessing the best distribution channels for penetrating the target market. Written not just for marketing specialists but for all employees whose futures ride on the success of a technical product, Crossing the Chasm delivers crucial information in an engaging, readable tone.4.

Den of Thieves by James Stewart From Library Journal Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine will long be remembered for the Wall Street insider trading scandals of the 1980s. Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Jour nal reporter who covered the various scandals, has used his reportage as well as an exhaustive culling of court documents, testimony, and interviews with all of the participants to fashion an authoritative account of what happened. Stewart has done a thorough job in assembling the facts and has made connections that may surprise some readers.

For example, Milken, the Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond king who convinced many savings institutions and insurance companies to buy these bonds in large quantities, may have indirectly contributed not only to the bailout of various thrifts but also to the insolvency of some insurance companies. While this is a well-researched and highly readable work, there is such an abundance of financial details that a glossary of terms and related Wall Street jargon would have been helpful. This minor caveat aside, Stewart's contemporary morality tale is recommended for all business collections in public, special, and academic libraries.(Index not seen.

) Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/91. - Richard Drezen, Merrill Lynch Lib. , New York 5.

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson From Publishers Weekly Wired editor Anderson declares the death of "common culture"—and insists that it's for the best. Why don't we all watch the same TV shows, like we used to? Because not long ago, "we had fewer alternatives to compete for our screen attention," he writes.

Smash hits have existed largely because of scarcity: with a finite number of bookstore shelves and theaters and Wal-Mart CD racks, "it's only sensible to fill them with the titles that will sell best." Today, Web sites and online retailers offer seemingly infinite inventory, and the result is the "shattering of the mainstream into a zillion different cultural shards. " These "countless niches" are market opportunities for those who cast a wide net and de-emphasize the search for blockbusters.

It's a provocative analysis and almost certainly on target—though Anderson's assurances that these principles are equally applicable outside the media and entertainment industries are not entirely convincing. The book overuses its examples from Google, Rhapsody, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix and eBay, and it doesn't help that most of the charts of "Long Tail" curves look the same. But Anderson manages to explain a murky trend in clear language, giving entrepreneurs and the rest of us plenty to think about.(July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

All rights reserved. Sources: My Opinion and Amazon superdave's Recommendations The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials) Amazon List Price: $17.95 Used from: $6.25 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 140 reviews) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Amazon List Price: $14.95 Used from: $5.50 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 688 reviews) Crossing the Chasm Amazon List Price: $17.95 Used from: $6.99 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 81 reviews) Den of Thieves Amazon List Price: $16.00 Used from: $0.88 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 72 reviews) The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More Amazon List Price: $24.95 Used from: $14.57 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 53 reviews) .

In my opinion . . .1.

Liar's Club by Mary Karr 2. Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson 3. The Education of Henry Adams 4.J.

Edgar Hoover, The Man and the Secrets 5. Fast Food Nation .

Here you go: 1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand 2. Winning by Jack Welch 3.

The Holy Bible 4. Animal Farm by George Orwell 5. How to Get Things Done by (I forgot) $0.02 .

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.