News & Blogs

Dear Undercover Economist, by Tim Harford £12.99 LITTLE, BROWN
By way of disclosure, we need to point out that author Tim Harford is, of course, our own columnist. So without any bias whatsoever we can say that this is a totally brilliant book. And it really is. This is the best-of collection of letters to his Undercover Economist column in the Financial Times, where he lets ecomonics answer questions such as “How do I stop my daughter thumping her little brother?” and “Should I bother with the ironing?” Hilarious and illuminating.

Marketing, by Patrick Forsyth £12.99 PROFILE BOOKS
With more CEOs than ever being drawn from the ranks of marketers, it makes sense to get to know how marketing actually works. Here is as good a starting place as any. Forsyth’s textbook covers all the bases and goes into great detail to demystify an industry that “serves as a link between a society’s needs and its pattern of industrial response.” As with most titles in The Economist series, this is a practical book that’s more at home in the study than by the bedside, but it’s a worthwhile read nonetheless.

The Back of the Napkin, by Dan Roam £12.99 MARSHALL CAVENDISH
The antidote to endless PowerPoint presentations, according to Dan Roam, the best way to visualise and present complex business ideas to an audience is to scribble them on a scrap of paper (or, more practically, a whiteboard). Roam reckons that it doesn’t matter if you draw like a kid, and his own sketches would confirm this (although he does do a very nice apple), as communication is all about brainstorming in the simplest possible way. In short, it’s definitely worth grabbing a pencil and giving it a go.