The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Management Books You'll Never Have Time to Read

If you want answers to many business problems and challenges, you will find them in this book.

The subtitle of this book is: The 100 Most Influential Management Books You'll Never Have Time to Read. The first thing I did was go through the table of contents and do a mental note of how many of these books I had heard of (about 85-90), then I did a count of those I had read (17). Such is part of the fun of looking at any sort of list of what is considered "best." I think the key criterion for "best" in this case is most influential, which helps me make more sense of what is included and some of what isn't. The book is useful in that each chapter (one for each of the 100 books) follows the same template, sharing a brief summary, the key ideas the book highlighted and a bit of context - how the book fits into the world and the impact it has had. If you are looking to become more conversant in some classic business literature and ideas, or if you are looking for a guide to help you fill the gaps in your own library, this book would be a good choice. It might not be a book to sit down with at the fire, but it is worth considering and taking a look at.

This book is similar to the Ultimate Business Library, the latest edition of which summarizes less books (75 in the latest edition rather than 100), but is longer. The Ultimate Business Library also has a better index. This book's index is only an author index, which is necessary because the summaries are arranged alphabetically by book title rather than by author. The Ultimate Business Library, on the other hand, arranges them alphabetically by author. Personally, I would prefer them to be arranged chronologically. This book also does not show the publication year of the books in the table of contents. So, it is difficult to read them in chronological order. The Ultimate Business Library wins out in this respect as well. I still like The Best Business Books Ever, but I wish I had bought the Ultimate Business Library instead.

BBBe provides a two-page summary of the hundred most influential business books. The mix is eclectic, including modern authors, such as Peter Senge and Peter Drucker, as well as historical writers, such as Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz and John Stuart Mill.Probably someone will complain that this is just another `Cliff Notes' of business books, but it provides an interesting history of attitudes towards business and a starting point for anyone looking for a guide to business books worth reading.