History Lessons, by Jonathan Gifford
£14.99 MARSHALL CAVENDIS
There’s nothing new about finding management lessons in history, but few books offer quite as comprehensive a collection of examples as this one. You can learn about planning from Napoleon Bonaparte, about making things happen from Oliver Cromwell, how to take the offensive from Saladin or even how to create opportunities from Genghis Khan. It’s all fascinating stuff and there is much of practical use to be learned. It’s quite a useful primer for anyone who bunked off history, too. 8/10
Mojo, by Marshall Goldsmith
£9.99 PROFILE BOOKS
Goldsmith is one of the top bananas of the executive coaching world and author of the very successful What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. His follow-up is all about finding and maintaining your mojo: “the positive spirit towards what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside”. In other words, we’re in classic self-help territory, so if you’re a fan of the genre, look no further. There’s just one quibble, however — the book’s type is extremely small — which really isn’t good for the mojo. 7/10
How To Become a Great Boss, by Jeffrey J Fox
£7.99 VERMILION
Here are a few of the amazing tips on how to be a great boss offered by this book. “Hire only top-notch people… Put the right people in the right job… Train your workforce.” If you think that these statements are rather stating the obvious, you’d be absolutely right. But then again you’re probably not the sort of person who would buy a book called How To Become a Great Boss. And if you need to be told that you should listen to your staff, maybe management really isn’t for you. 5/10
The top five
business:life's favourite football books
1 The Miracle of Castel di Sangro
Joe McGinniss
2 Fever Pitch
Nick Hornby
3 Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino
Paul Kimmage
4 All Played Out: The Full Story of Italia 90
Pete Davies
5 Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
David Winner
