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http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/another-retailer-bites-dust-borders-doomed-amazon-deal-163606690.html

There were many missteps that caused this business to fail from holding too much debt, opening too many stores as well as jumping into the e-reader business to late. But above all, there was one "disastrous move" that put the final nail in Borders' coffin, says retail expert Howard Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Associates.

"I think the biggest thing Borders did wrong is when they turned over their online business to Amazon," Davidowitz tells The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task and Breakout's Jeff Macke in the accompanying interview. "That move finished them off because they gave away the future."

Be A Leader : Leading cross functional teams

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration; of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine. - Lance Secretan, Industry Week 98

The word "leadership" comes from an old Norse word-root meaning "to make go." Indeed, leadership is about making things go — making people go, making organizations go. But the misunderstandings come in when leaders fail to recognize who actually makes what go.

Be it service or production - leadership is essential element to mange group integration and best practices. Fast growing IT & Biotech industries are in need of great leaders to manage innovation and intelligence. With expectation of managing multiple functionalities and skills required business, Buzz world wants cross-functional team leaders.

Cross Functional Team
A cross-functional team is made up of participants from a variety of business functions. For instance, one might have a cross-functional team whose aim is to develop a new product. That team might be composed of participants from the company's manufacturing, sales, marketing, and financial functions. Cross-functional teams help companies do more with less.

Cross-functional teaming is not just about managing relationships in different locations or functions. It is not about using "old management techniques" in a new business world. Rather, it is about expanding our thinking and our tools to create new opportunities that are aligned with the best thinking about using the resources of our people.

Leading As Leader

Effective team leader are self-directed with teams and committees. Effective team leader has a clear vision and able to communicate that vision to the members of the team. Such leaders develop a sense of urgency about the team’s work, involve team members in goal setting and decision-making and foster a climate of openness and honesty. People want to work for them.

If we try to identify key words to become or leading a team as a leader then such words are: - Clear Vision, With Teams & Committees, Ability to communicate vision, Sense of Urgency, Involve team in decision-making, Openness and Honesty.

When we talk about cross-functional team leader, leader should add further more keywords. Pulling a group of people together and dealing with upper management, functional department heads and support groups.

Lao Tzu said "Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."

Let me list out qualities a leader needs.

* Be participative than directive, more enabling than performing.
* Leaders do nothing more important than have people get results.
* Practice effective relationship management up down and across the organization.
* Be able to work with little, no, or at best unclear authority.
* Demonstrate a working knowledge of the technical, scientific and business issues.
* Facilitate the establishment of team goals and an implementation plan and then keep focused on their targets.
* Protect team from undue and unproductive interference.
* Be assertive about obtaining the resources necessary for the team to be successful.
* Keep faith with the past, keep step with the present, and keep the promise to posterity. (Harold)
* Commit and believe in value of the work and willingness to work through obstacles.
* Able to deal with ambiguity and act without complete information.
* Be open to change and help the team adjust to changing conditions and priorities.
* Be authentic; make honest commitments, tell the truth and act with integrity.
* Inspire self with great confidence in self.
* Leader is to get others to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve (Tom Landry)

Cross functional leader needs following qualities in core of leadership.
- Recognizing the talent and contribution each individual can make.
- Keeping the team focused on goals, measurements and outcomes.
- Facilitating a sense of diversity, interdependence and accountability among team members.
- Defining a decision process that encourages empowerment and keeps corporate bureaucracy to a minimum.
- Realizing that organizational change is more a way of life than an obstacle to be overcome.

And Finally…
Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning. (Warren Bennis)

Further Readings
Managing cross-functional teams - Terry R. Seamons
Leadership and Cross Functional Teams - Brent Filson

Columbia Business School Executive MBA

Core Curriculum

Columbia Business School’s core curriculum, a series of focused, rigorous, and relevant courses taken primarily during the first year of the Executive MBA Program, is designed to give students an in-depth mastery of the aca

Electives

Upon completion of the core curriculum, Executive MBA students assemble their own schedules, choosing the courses they are most interested in from a wide array of electives. These courses allow students to delve deep into specialized topics with faculty members who are on the forefront of innovation in their respective fields.

Schedule permitting, students also have the chance to enroll in electives in the traditional MBA program, many of which meet weekday evenings, and to participate in elective block weeks, which bring together students from all Columbia’s EMBA programs for intensive, cross-cultural learning experiences. In the second year, EMBA students also take the weeklong International Seminar, which sends them abroad to directly experience business at the international level.

Some recent electives include:

• Advanced Corporate Finance
• Entrepreneurial Management
• Executive Leadership
• Managing Brands, Identity & Experiences
• Modern Political Economy

• Napoleon’s Glance
• Real Estate Finance
• Supply Chain Management
• Top Management Process
• Thinking Globally

demic disciplines and applied functional areas necessary to every business leader’s success.

First-year EMBA students are divided into clusters of 60 to 70 students who take every core course together. Clusters are further broken down into learning teams of five to six students with diverse professional backgrounds, strengths, and weaknesses, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration from the start of the program. The bonds formed among clustermates and learning team members form the foundation of Columbia Business School’s community and global network.

Core courses are:

• Corporate Finance
• Financial Accounting
• Managerial Statistics
• Managerial Economics
• Strategy Formulation
• Leadership and Organizational Change

• Marketing Strategy
• Operations Management and Strategy
• Decision Models
• Global Economic Environment I and II
• Financial Planning and Analysis

Note that each core course is taught by several different professors each term; the professors and syllabi linked above are merely samples of what may be offered in a given term.

Columbia Business School MBA

Core Curriculum

The Columbia MBA Core Curriculum represents about 40 percent of the degree requirement — two full courses and 12 half-term courses. As of fall 2008, the new core also offers students the option of a “flexible core.” In the second half of the second term, students will select their core classes from three prespecified menus (Organizations, Performance, and Markets), choosing a single course from each area.

The courses that make up the core curriculum follow. Click on a course name to view the course description.

First Term

1st half	Corporate Finance	Financial Accounting	Managerial Statistics	Managerial Economics	Strategy Formulation
2nd half			Marketing Strategy	Operations Management	Leadership Development

Second Term

1st half	Global Economic Environment	Decision Models	Managing Marketing Programs	Elective 1	Elective 2
2nd half	Menu 1: Organizations	Menu 2: Performance	Menu 3: Markets

Organizations	Performance	Markets
Organizational Change	Operations Strategy	Game Theory and Business
Power and Influence	Financial Planning and Analysis	Global Economic Environment II: Business Cycles and Financial Markets
Social Networks and Social Capital		Incentives and Performance

Electives

Students may choose from more than 130 elective courses at Columbia Business School and supplement them with more than 4,000 graduate-level classes from the University’s other graduate and professional schools.

Among the most popular electives at Columbia Business School are the following:

Master Classes

Among students’ many elective options are the newly developed Master Classes. Each Master Class focuses on a specific industry context (e.g., media, real estate, consulting) and draws significant input from the professional community via group projects, guest speakers, adjunct faculty, and alumni participation. With substantial project work and practitioner involvement, Master Classes provide students with unique exposure to real-time business challenges.

Economics of Strategic Behavior

Offering an excellent background for all consultants, managers, and corporate finance generalists, this course examines the economics of successful business strategy — from the dynamics of entering an industry and the strategic imperatives of competitive markets to the sources of competitive advantage.

Financial Statement Analysis and Earnings Quality

Recent events underscore the importance of this course, in which students learn how to glean information about a firm’s current and past performance from financial statements. Students also gain a deeper understanding of specific financial statements from a user’s perspective, particularly focusing on issues of earnings quality, as well as more advanced topics related to mergers and acquisitions and consolidated financial reporting.

Introduction to Venturing

This course challenges students to consider how appropriate an entrepreneurial career may be for them. An overview of the entrepreneurial process, the course covers such topics as characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, techniques for finding and screening ideas, entrepreneurial finance, the politics of new ventures, valuation and deal making, writing a business plan, buying a business, family business dynamics, and managing crisis and failure.

Launching New Ventures

Students work individually or in teams to develop a comprehensive and effective presentation of a real business concept. Faculty, industry mentors, and others help students distill business opportunities into a written and oral presentation ready to seek funding and commence operations.

Managerial Negotiations

Recognizing the critical role that negotiations play in management, this course — one of the most celebrated electives at the School — uses actual negotiations, as well as concepts from the behavioral sciences, economics, and game theory, to hone students’ negotiating skills.

Modern Political Economy

Beginning with Adam Smith, this course examines leading political economists’ theoretical contributions to the development of capitalism. It focuses on the effects of international business on the development of American capitalism and the nation-state.

Operations Consulting

This Master Class is a hands-on laboratory in which student teams work on real-world consulting projects representing diverse industries and varied problem types. The course has been designed and is delivered with substantial participation by major consulting firms. Students learn consulting skills and leading practices through guest lectures by senior consultants at these firms. Throughout the term, the teams will interact intensely with the client organization and receive feedback and critiques on their work.

Retailing: Design and Marketing of Luxury Goods

Bringing together Columbia MBA students and the Parsons School of Design undergraduates, this course provides students with the tools to address the idiosyncrasies of the luxury industry by studying various aspects of the business, from design, production, and management to distribution and promotion. Students work in teams on company-sponsored projects focusing on product design, communication design, and interior design.

Security Pricing: Models and Computations

This course examines the development of models for security pricing, portfolio analysis, and risk management. Particular attention is given to computer-based models for option pricing and hedging; mean variance analysis; multi-period portfolio optimization; analysis of the term structure; and interest rate-sensitive securities, including swaps, “swaptions,” and mortgage-backed securities. Techniques include binomial methods and Monte Carlo simulation, as well as linear and quadratic programming and regression.

Seminar in Value Investing

Designed to develop the approach to investments and security analysis pioneered by Columbia Professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, this course details the comprehensive statistical evidence in favor of such a technique and the types of investments that are likely to be fruitful targets of a value approach. Lecturers and visiting speakers — successful practicing value investors — have included Warren Buffett, MS ’51; Robert Bruce, MBA ’70; Mario Gabelli, MBA ’67; and Charles “Chuck” Royce, MBA ’63.

Top Management Process

How do general managers get things done? Typically, they work through processes, or sequences of tasks and activities that unfold over time. This course explores six top management processes: strategy, decision making, resource allocation, learning, managerial decision making, and change.

Turnaround Management

Turnarounds require an integrated view of accounting, corporate finance, cash flow and balance-sheet projections, debt restructuring and liquidation analysis, and credit relationships. Students examine these concepts from the general manager’s perspective through group-oriented projects.

BusinessWeek Reading List for Business Books

Who knew business people were so well read? BusinessWeek Online tapped a bevy of prominent professors and business professionals and asked them about their favorite books, business or otherwise. Browse around and discover what made those books inspirational, instructive, or influential in their thinking and their careers. What would they advise you to read if you had the chance to ask them?

When BusinessWeek Online last complied a reading list in 2000, New Economy instant classics like Michael Lewis’ The New New Thing unsurprisingly abounded. In our updated and expanded list – featuring recommendations from over 30 professors and practitioners – you’ll find a more diverse tip sheet with something for everyone – from Kotler to Kerouac, fantasy to finance.

Below you'll find biographies on our participants along with their recommendations. Maybe knowing about the favorite books of successful people will spark you to read something you might otherwise have missed or get you to think about books that are important to you — or both. Enjoy!

Amit Basu SMU	• Innovator's Dilemma An insightful analysis of the impact of technology on industries and organizations, and a convincing argument for why thinking outside the box is so critical.
John Edmunds Babson	• Liars' Poker An engaging read that depicts the rape and plunder mentality of Wall Street traders.
Roland Rust Maryland	• 2020 Vision More than any other book, this book expresses clearly the vision that information is becoming the key to business. It opened my eyes.

Mike Useem U Penn    • Good to Great How effective leaders combine personal humility with firm determination to move average performers into great producers. Rosabeth Kanter Harvard Jerald Greenberg's Book Recommendations  VALUES OF THE GAME by Bill Bradley "This former U.S. Senator, basketball star, and presidential hopeful explores how values on the court are portrayed in life off the court, and vice versa. Basketball as a metaphor for such life values as courage, discipline, resilience, respect, and of course, teamwork, makes for highly insightful reading."  • TYRANNY OF THE BOTTOM LINE by Ralph Estes "The author explores the dynamics underlying how corporations make good people do bad things. His analysis shows how the original purpose of the corporation has become perverted through unbalanced focus on the bottom-line mentality."  • HEALTHY COMPANY: EIGHT STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP PEOPLE, PRODUCTIVITY, AND PROFITS by Robert H. Rosen & Lisa Berger "Although now dated, this book is full of good examples of companies that have benefited by treating employees with dignity and respect. It provides fascinating cases of how doing good for employees means doing good for the company as well."  • THE AMERICAN MOSAIC by Anthony Patrick Carnevale and Susan Carol Stone "This is the definitive guide to the history and nature of diversity in the American workplace. Although some of the statistics are now out of date, this book provides the most compelling analysis of how the American workplace became the racial and ethnic mosaic it is today."  • IN THE AGE OF THE SMART MACHINE by Shoshana Zuboff "This book is a classic, and one of the few works describing social and interpersonal responses to technology in the workplace. Interestingly, many of the author's prognostications have proven to be correct."  • NERDS 2.0.1. by Stephen Segaller "This book accompanies the PBS series on the birth of the Internet. It is a humbling look at how just a few people (not including Al Gore) revolutionized the world."  • KIND OF BLUE: MAKING OF THE MILES DAVIS MASTERPIECE by Ashley Kahn & Jimmy Cobb "This book chronicles the making of a classic jazz album. Not only does it provide insight into the creative process, but also the social norms and business practices in the recording industry in the 1950s."  • BLUR: THE SPEED OF CHANGE IN THE CONNECTED ECONOMY by Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer "Much has been written and said about how quickly technology has changed the world. However, this book does the best job of chronicling the maddening pace of the connected economy."  • THE EXCUSE FACTORY: HOW EMPLOYMENT LAW IS PARALYZING THE AMERICAN WORKPLACE by Walter K. Olson "The American legal system has created a situation in which many employers are reluctant to fire bad employees. This book's tales of how this dynamic has come about and how it is wreaking havoc in the economy are enough to make readers scream for common sense to prevail."  • REPUTATION by Charles J. Fombrun "This book provides compelling evidence of the value associated with a positive corporate reputation--a belief that long has been claimed, but only recently has been examined scientifically."  Biographical Info:  Jerald Greenberg is the Irving Abramowitz Memorial Professor of Business Ethics at The Ohio State University. For more information on Mr. Greenberg, please visit:http://fisher.osu.edu/facultyguide/faculty/greenberg/greenberg.htm  •  DESTINY OF CHANGE by Kenneth R. Schneider "This is a wonderful book for people who want to think about the role of the individual and individual ethics in industrial society. I have spent a number of years thinking, teaching and writing about how people behave in their business roles. While there is much argument to the contrary, I believe that people do not behave so differently at work and at home - that they are not ethical at work and not at home. Schneider's book provides a way to think about individual morality and the importance of the fostering a moral culture."  • THE SNEETCHES AND OTHER STORIES by Dr. Seuss "Several of the stories in this book offer wonderful illustrations of important management lessons. In particular, "The Sneetches" and "The Zax". "The Sneetches" provides a lovely illustration about the dangers of assimilation and the power of recognizing and accepting one's differences and strengths. "The Zax" is a fine story about conflict management or the lack thereof. Two Zax come head to head as they are walking in different directions - one going South and one going North. The beauty of these stories is that they provide very clear messages in a totally non-threatening way and let people relax with what are often difficult subjects."  • GEEK LOVE by Katherine Dunn "While this would likely strike most readers as an extremely odd choice of favorites, this book changed the way I think about my own view of normal and the erroneous judgments I may have made about people's preferences. In particular, this work changed the way that I think about what constitutes "normal" and how that term is used, particularly to describe physical appearance. In her unusual story, Dunn tells the story of a family that purposely produces children who have physical "abnormalities". The children are loved by the parents not in spite of their physical differences but because of those differences. The children and the parents value the differences in ways that are very uncommon in our society."  • THE SMALL ROOM by May Sarton "This is the story of a woman professor having to come to terms with her discovery that a favorite student has cheated. Her story resonated naturally resonated with me, as a woman professor who seeks to be compassionate but not a pushover, fair and just. Around the time I read the book I had dealt with my first case of cheating in my classroom. I was devastated - surprised and disappointed, having somehow expected that if I was friendly, fair, kind, and so on, that all of my students would respond in a like manner. Sarton's work allowed me both to see the incident in a less personalized way and to think about my own naivete as a contributing factor in my strong reaction."  • IN THE SKIN OF A LION by Michael Ondaatje "I do not think I fully understood the concept of epiphany before I read this book and it is that thought which I continue to hold onto. There is a scene in which a nun falls from a bridge and is, miraculously caught be a man doing construction work on the bridge. In the moment of her fall she understood that she did not want to be a nun. Ondaatje's brilliant description of that moment of self-realization and revelation spoke to me about how we can come to know ourselves and that the truth about what we need is usually within us. I now keep a dish of beautiful stones on my desk - I called them epiphany stones. Though I often want to throw them at people so that they can really see their lives, I use them only to remind myself that people have the capability to see the truth."  • NO FUTURE WITHOUT FORGIVENESS by Desmond Mpilo Tutu "As a person who has worked in the area of conflict management (University Ombudsperson), taught courses in Negotiation, conducted employee and management conflict management seminars and now functions as a Dean of an Undergraduate Program, I have had many occasions to see and work with people's anger and hurt. As the major force behind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Desmond Tutu has provided all of us with another way, his "third way" of healing hurt and diminishing anger. There is not a day that goes by that I do not reflect upon his teachings and use his work as my own example. In particular, the notion that a person's life can actually be enriched by pain and conflict and then forgiveness gave me a different way to talk to employees, students, and parents who were angry or hurt or carrying a long grudge. In this book, Tutu writes with humor, seriousness, and compassion about his life, his work and the lessons he has learned. Clearly this learning has not come without cost but he is wise and brave and I was the lucky recipient of his strengths."  Biographical Info:  Nancy Hauserman is an Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Teaching Program, and a Williams Teaching Professor at theUniversity of Iowa. Nancy Hauserman ,earned her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Rhode Island and her J.D. from the University of Iowa. She is a Professor in the Department of Management and Organizations, College of Business Administration and holds the Williams Teaching chair in the College. In August 1999, she was appointed Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Program in the Tippie College of Business. She served as as Ombudsperson for the University of Iowa for three years. Professor Hauserman teaches courses in introductory law, ethics, critical incidents in teaching and diversity issues.  She has been recognized as an outstanding teacher and has won several awards and honors at the University of Iowa.  She has published in the areas of sexual harassment, ethics, whistleblowing, media law, and economic aspects of family law. She has conducted workshops and training sessions in both the public and private sectors in the areas of conflict management, ethics, diversity, and sexual harassment in the United States, Finland, Sweden and Russia. She frequently serves as an expert witness in sexual harassment cases.  Marianne Jennings's Book Recommendations • BUSINESS AS A CALLING: WORK AND THE EXAMINED LIFE by Michael Novak "This book is required reading for my first year MBA students because Mr. Novak found the moral foundation of business and explains it. Indeed, Mr. Novak may be philosophy's only advocate for capitalism. His work stands alone among the socialists of the academy. Without going so far as to equate retained earnings with the Holy Grail, this book inspires business people to conduct their business with conscience. When business students grasp that neither capitalism nor they, for pursuing a role in that system, are evil, they aspire to higher moral and ethical standards. You can't go wrong with a writer who explains the wisdom of the founders as follows, "In God we trust. Everybody else gets checks and balances.""  • THE ROAD TO SERFDOM by F.A. Hayek "Just the dedication of the book makes it a page-turner, "To Socialists of all parties." Hayek didn't win the Nobel in Economics until 1974, 30 years after this book first made its shocking splash. Hayek writes a tribute to individualism, a case for truth, a rejection of ends justifying means and a call for limited government, all in 262 pages. An enticing quote on the role of commerce in increasing the standard of living for all, "It may sound noble to say, 'Damn economics, let us build up a decent world' - but it is, in fact, merely irresponsible." Hayek predicted the sixties, explained them in advance of Woodstock and even saw the postmodernists coming while they were passing through modern. A must-read for anyone who thinks Ben & Jerry and the Body Shop are the only businesses to do things right."  • THE MORAL COMPASS by William J. Bennett "William Bennett has never lost his faith in good leaders or his ability to spot them, in present day or the annals of history. Mr. Bennett is inspirational in his choice of tales for this 800-page tome that has a story for every speech, a tale for every sales meeting and a moral on every page. He has romance and loyalty in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. He shows that self-deprecation is a tool of leaders in his tale of George Washington taking out his reading glasses as he speaks to inspire his soldiers. His segment on "Easing the Path" is a reminder of the obligation of those who have been given much to be expected to give more in return. Character and integrity tales inspire through the entire middle of the book. When you think you cannot go on, when you don't know if you have what it takes, if you are thinking of wavering on principle, pick up this book and read. Two minutes to two weeks later, depending on how you are hooked and how long you have, you'll find your inspiration."  • PROVERBS, THE BIBLE  Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbor. -Proverbs 19:4  Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. -Proverbs 17:28  He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty... -Proverbs 16:32  Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish. -Proverbs 12:1  The righteous considereth the cause of the poor: but the wicked regardeth not to know it. -Proverbs 29:7  "Need I say more? You can't find tidbits like these on the flips charts at any retreat."  • CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL by Ayn Rand "Miss Rand was quoting Alan Greenspan decades before his Federal Reserve stint and Andrea Mitchell days. She draws on papers he presented in 1959 and includes his 1966 essay on "Gold and Economic Freedom" as part of this collection of her essays and those of others to make the case against altruism. Her discussion of the antitrust suit against Alcoa could be a description of today's Microsoft case; just substitute company names. She pierces through psychology as the study of man and his tendencies without acknowledging that man is conscious and the study of politics and economics without acknowledging that man is the driving force in both. An intellectual smart-mouth, Miss Rand challenges conventional thinking about what is moral and right in commerce, demanding more depth and fewer platitudes."    • Long Walk to Freedom This is an inspiring story about leadership in the most difficult of circumstances.

Top 50 Business Books, ‘Animal Spirits’ to ‘What the Dog Saw’

With so many business books spilling from the shelves, we’re often asked for a comprehensive list of recommendations. Here’s an updated list of 50 top titles published since Jan. 1, 2009.

“Animal Spirits” by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller (Princeton). The two economists explore how psychology drove us from boom to bust.

“The Big Questions” by Steven E. Landsburg (Free Press). The Armchair Economist dips into physics, mathematics and economics to answer the eternal questions of philosophy.

“The Big Rich” by Bryan Burrough (Penguin Press). A galloping history of the wildcatters whose drive, ranches and gaudy mansions inspired the Beverly Hillbillies and J.R. Ewing.

“The Big Short” by Michael Lewis (Norton/Allen Lane). The author of “Liar’s Poker” tells the story of a loner with a glass eye and other outliers who shorted the subprime market.

“Chasing Goldman Sachs” by Suzanne McGee (Crown Business). A disturbing account of how Goldman Sachs Group Inc. became a seductively successful Pied Piper, luring rival banks down a path to destruction.

“A Colossal Failure of Common Sense” by Lawrence G. McDonald with Patrick Robinson (Crown Business). McDonald, a former trader at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., offers a scathing inside look at how the firm became a house divided.

“Crash Course” by Paul Ingrassia (Random House). A poised account of Detroit’s slide “from glory to disaster.”

“Crisis Economics” by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm (Penguin Press/Allen Lane). The prescient New York University professor explains why booms and busts occur.

“The Devil’s Casino” by Vicky Ward (Wiley). A look at the destructive rivalry among Richard S. Fuld Jr. and four other men who rose to power at Lehman in the 1980s.

“Don’t Blame the Shorts” by Robert Sloan (McGraw-Hill). A history of America’s (misplaced) distrust of short sellers.

“The Education of an American Dreamer” by Peter G. Peterson (Twelve). The co-founder of Blackstone Group LP has led an improbably diverse life, as this disarming memoir shows.

“The End of Wall Street” by Roger Lowenstein (Penguin Press). A decade after capturing the hubris of Long-Term Capital Management LP in “When Genius Failed,” Lowenstein reports on what he calls “the mother of all bubbles.”

“The Facebook Effect” by David Kirkpatrick (Simon & Schuster). An engrossing and scrupulously fair history of howMark Zuckerberg built the social-networking website.

“Fault Lines” by Raghuram G. Rajan (Princeton). The University of Chicago professor shows why our flawed financial order risks driving us “from bubble to bubble.”

“In Fed We Trust” by David Wessel (Crown Business). The Wall Street Journal columnist shows how Federal Reserve ChairmanBen Bernanke and other policy makers dug into an emergency tool kit to keep the financial system afloat.

“The First Tycoon” by T.J. Stiles (Knopf). Fistfights, shipwrecks and market manipulation enliven this monumental biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

“Fool’s Gold” by Gillian Tett (Free Press/Little, Brown). Tett introduces a band of JPMorgan Chase & Co. bankers who pioneered some of the credit instruments that plunged the world into chaos.

“Freefall” by Joseph E. Stiglitz (Norton/Allen Lane). The Nobel Prize-winning economist describes the flawed theories and misguided policies that wrought the meltdown.

“A Gift to My Children” by Jim Rogers (Random House/ Wiley). The “adventure capitalist” distills the lessons of his investing life into an open letter to his daughters.

“Googled” by Ken Auletta (Penguin Press). Is Google Inc. a force for good -- or for ill? Auletta explores this vital topic in exhaustive detail.

“The Greatest Trade Ever” by Gregory Zuckerman (Broadway/ Viking). A reconstruction of John Paulson’s trade against the housing bubble.

“The Great Reset” by Richard Florida (Harper). The crisis could allow Schumpeterian “creative destruction” to sweep away obsolete systems and make room for innovation, Florida says.

“House of Cards” by William D. Cohan (Doubleday/Allen Lane). The former Lazard Freres & Co. banker recounts the cocky rise and meteoric fall of Bear Stearns Cos.

“How Markets Fail” by John Cassidy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Allen Lane). Cassidy traces the dangerous emergence of what he calls “utopian economics.”

“How the Mighty Fall” by Jim Collins (HarperCollins/ Random House). The author of “Good to Great” and “Built to Last” turns to what he calls the dark side.

“Identity Economics” by George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton (Princeton). Decisions that shape our lives often hinge on our perceived place in society, not solely on a calculation of financial costs and benefits.

“The Invisible Hands” by Steven Drobny (Wiley). The co- founder of Drobny Global Advisors frets that taxpayers may end up bailing out pension plans. He blames Harvard’s class of ‘69.

“I.O.U.” by John Lanchester (Simon & Schuster; published as “Whoops!” by Allen Lane). Warren Buffett mingles with a Mafia don and zombies in this mischievous primer on the crisis.

“Keynes” by Peter Clarke (Bloomsbury). A succinct account of the life and work of the English economist.

“The King of Oil” by Daniel Ammann (St. Martin’s). The story of billionaire commodity trader Marc Rich.

“Jimmy Stewart Is Dead” by Laurence J. Kotlikoff (Wiley). The Boston University economist makes his case for “limited- purpose” banking.

“Last Man Standing” by Duff McDonald (Simon & Schuster). A biography of Jamie Dimon, one of the few Wall Street executives to emerge from the crisis with his reputation intact.

“Lords of Finance” by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin Press/ Heinemann). A vivid history of how four central bankers brought on the Great Depression.

“The Match King” by Frank Partnoy (PublicAffairs/Profile Business). All about Ivar Kreuger, the enigmatic financier who cornered the match market in the 1920s.

“More Money Than God” by Sebastian Mallaby (Penguin Press/Bloomsbury). A storied history of hedge-fund luminaries, from Alfred Winslow Jones to Ken Griffin.

“The Myth of the Rational Market” by Justin Fox (HarperBusiness/Harriman). A crowd of brainy theorists come to life in this history of the efficient-markets theory.

“No One Would Listen” by Harry Markopolos (Wiley). A first-person account of the struggle to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard Madoff’s returns were mathematically impossible.

“On the Brink” by Henry M. Paulson Jr. (Business Plus). The former U.S. Treasury secretary describes his fight to prop up the financial system.

“Past Due” by Peter S. Goodman (Times Books). A richly reported look at how Americans became profligate borrowers partly because the U.S. economy isn’t creating enough goodjobs.

“Priceless” by William Poundstone (Hill and Wang). Companies, restaurants and even artists exploit psychology to extract more cash from the rest of us, as Poundstone shows.

“The Quants” by Scott Patterson (Crown Business). A behind-the-scenes look at the turbulent lives of four quants, includingKen Griffin.

“The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns” by Alan C. Greenberg (Simon & Schuster). The former chairman, a self-described “bald guy wearing a bowtie,” tells his side of the story.

“Selling America Short” by Richard C. Sauer (Wiley). A former SEC attorney takes us on a lively tour of his fraud investigations.

“SuperFreakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow/Allen Lane). Why suicide bombers should buy life insurance and hookers work overtime around the Fourth of July.

“13 Bankers” by Simon Johnson and James Kwak (Pantheon). Unless too-big-to-fail banks are broken up, they will trigger another meltdown, the authors say.

“This Time Is Different” by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff (Princeton). Wherever you open this landmark study, you’ll find proof that debt-fueled expansions have ended in financial ruin for 800 years.

“Too Big to Fail” by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking/Allen Lane). A cinematic reconstruction of how the top dogs of Wall Street and Washington struggled to save the system (and their own skins).

“War at the Wall Street Journal” by Sarah Ellison (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). An inside look at Rupert Murdoch’s takeover.

“What the Dog Saw” by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown/ Allen Lane). The author of “The Tipping Point” is back with a new collection on topics including Nassim Taleb and Enron Corp.

“You Are Not a Gadget” by Jaron Lanier (Knopf/Allen Lane). The virtual-reality pioneer dismantles the tropes of the “Web 2.0” online culture and calls for a more humanistic digital future.

(James Pressley writes for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: James Pressley in Brussels atjpressley@bloomberg.net.