The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Taleb delivers a groundbreaking look at the role played by the unexpected in life and history, and a fascinating examination of why we know less than we think we do and what to do about it.

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Contending that more is not better for consumers, bestselling author McKibben offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for a hopeful future. For those who wonder if there isn't more to life than buying, he provides insight on individual responsibility as well as global awareness.

Everybody Loves a Good Drought

In this thoroughly researched study of the poorest of the poor in India, we get to see how they manage, what sustains them, and the efforts, often ludicrous, to do something for them. The people who figure in this book tipify the lives and aspirations of a large section of the Indian society, and their stories present us with the true face of development.

The universal laws of business success . . . no matter whether you are selling fruit from a stand or running a Fortune 500 company.
Have you ever noticed that the business savvy of the world's best CEOs seems like a kind of street smarts? They sense where the opportunities are and how to take advantage of them. And their companies make money consistently, year after year.
How different is it to run a big company than to sell fruit from a cart or run a small shop in a village? In essence, not very, according to Ram Charan. From his childhood in India, where he worked in his family's shoe shop, to his education at Harvard Business School and his daily work advising many of the world's best CEOs, Ram understands business as few can.
The best CEOs have a knack for bringing the most complex business down to the fundamentals -- the same fundamentals of the family shoe shop. They have business acumen -- the ability to focus on the basics and make money for the company.
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What the CEO Wants You to Know captures these insights and explains in clear, simple language how to do what great CEOs do instinctively and persistently:
* Understand the basic building blocks of a business and use them to figure out how your company makes money and operates as a total business.
* Decide what to do, despite the clutter of day-to-day business and the complexity of the real world.
Many people spend more than a hundred thousand dollars on an MBA without learning to pull these pieces of the puzzle together. Many others lack a formal business education and feel shut out from the executive suite. What the CEO Wants You to Know takes the mystery out of business and shows the secrets ofsuccess used by business legends like Jack Welch of GE.

Small Is Beautiful

The classic of common-sense economics. "Enormously broad in scope, pithily weaving together threads from Galbraith and Gandhi, capitalism and Buddhism, science and psychology."

Imagining India: Ideas For The New Century

Since the early 1990s, India has witnessed great social, political and cultural change. As the worlds largest democracy, its most diverse nation and one of its fastest growing economies, India is now, sixty years after Independence, universally regarded as an emerging superpower. In this sweeping and comprehensive book, one the countrys finest and most dynamic minds examines the central ideas that have shaped modern India, and offers an original perspective on our past, present and future. Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who has been a key player in Indias growth story and was chosen by Time magazine as one of the hundred most influential people in the world, points out that the countrys future rests on more than simply economic growth; it also depends on reform and innovation in all sectors of public life. Looking closely at our recent history, he examines the ideas and attitudes that have evolved with the times and contributed to our progress, as also those that keep us shackled to old, unproductive and fundamentally undemocratic ways. He discusses how, despite good intentions and astonishing idealism, our early socialist policies stifled growth and weakened our democracy; how, contrary to received wisdom, Indias large and overwhelmingly young population has now become our greatest strength; how information technology is revolutionizing not just business but also governance in the everyday life of a vast majority of Indians; and how rapid urbanization is transforming both our society and our politics. He also gets to the heart of charged debates about caste politics, labour reform, infrastructure, higher education, the English language in India and the role of the state in a globalized world where the wealth of big corporations exceeds that of some nations. And as he does this, he asks the key questions of the future: how will India as a global power avoid the mistakes of earlier development models? Will further access to the open market continue to stimulate such extraordinary growth? And how will this growth affect and be shaped by the countrys young people? India is in the middle of a huge transformational process, Nilekani argues, and only a safety net of ideasfrom genuinely inclusive democracy to social security, from public health to sustainable energycan transcend political agendas and safeguard the countrys future.

What is an outlier?
"Outlier" is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book I'm interested in people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.

Happier

Yes… according to the teacher of Harvard University’s most popular and life-changing course. One out of every five Harvard students has lined up to hear Tal Ben-Shahar’s insightful and inspiring lectures on that ever-elusive state: Happiness. How? Grounded in the revolutionary “positive psychology” movement, Ben-Shahar ingeniously combines scientific studies, scholarly research, self-help advice, and spiritual enlightenment. He weaves them together into a set of principles that you can apply to your daily life. Once you open your heart and mind to Happier’s ideas, you will feel more fulfilled, more connected…and, yes, HAPPIER.