Difference between revisions of "Newest Business and Finance Reviews"

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[[Category:Business and Finance|*]]
 
[[Category:Business and Finance|*]]
 
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{{newreview
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|author=Gerry Brown
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|title=The Independent Director: The Non-Executive Director's Guide to Effective Board Presence
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0241636604
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
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|author=Gary Stevenson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Autobiography
 +
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson.  A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice.  There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics.  Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy.  He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid.  It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank.  Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Fiona Parashar
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|title=A Beautiful Way to Coach
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=In the United Kingdom independent directors are usually known as non-executive directors to distinguish them from the executive – those people charged with actually running the company on a day-to-day basis - but Gerry Brown usually refers to them as independent directors, a phrase which is common in other parts of the worldInitially, I found the phrase somewhat unusual but as I read ''The Independent Director'' I came to prefer that usage as it stresses what the director must be  above all else independent and able to stand back from the management of a business and view what is happening  and what is planned with a dispassionate and critical eye. There's little in the way of training and it can be argued that no one is actually qualified to do the job, but Brown's book is as good as you're going to get in terms of spelling out the responsibilities and pitfalls.
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|summary= So what am I doing reading this book, using this book, and being audacious enough to review it?  Truth is I bought it out of curiosity.  I was at an on-line launch for the  book and Fiona’s description of her Vision Days appealed to me.  I wanted to see if there were things in there that I could use with someone I am currently helping / supporting / trying to mentor without committing them to a full day, which I know would send them scurrying for their burrow.   I also wanted to see if I could give myself a Vision Day, to bring me away from their vision and back to my own.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>113748053X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=103211603X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen Platt
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|isbn=303091657X
|title=Criminal Capital: How the Finance Industry Facilitates Crime
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|title=Disaster in the Boardroom: Six Dysfunctions Everyone Should Understand
|rating=4
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|author=Gerry Brown and Randall S Peterson
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=It used to be estate agents we reviled the most, but they've now achieved relative respectabilityMPs briefly took the top spot, but for many years now the list has been topped by bankers following the 2008 financial crisis, when huge taxpayer-funded financial bailouts were required to keep the world's financial system afloatMost people will think that we've heard the worst of what has been going on, but Stephen Platt believes that excessive risk taking and mis-selling might well be just a minor part of what is ''still'' happening in the industry and that government attempts to counter the problems are misguided and unlikely to be effective.
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|summary=Boards must act in the best interests of their stakeholders and ensure that they are well-managed and financially secureThis might seem obvious but a series of disasters - some of which have resulted in death or the collapse of a major company - have left interested parties asking what the board was doingWhere were they?  Occasionally the boards were unaware of what was happening or they preferred to turn a blind eye, leaving watchers wondering which was worse - ignorance or criminality.  The 21st century has delivered some major company scandals but what has happened is nothing new: Gerry Brown and Randall S Peterson give us a very readable trip through such major debacles as railway mania, the South Sea Bubble and even tulip mania.  Over three centuries we seem to have learned very little.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>113733729X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jonathan Gabay
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|isbn=1529393930
|title=Brand Psychology: Consumer Perceptions, Corporate Reputations
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|title=Making a Living: How to Craft Your Business
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|author=Sophie Rochester
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Business and Finance
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|genre=Crafts
|summary=Confession - I'm a bit of a brand geek. I do have some marketing work experience but that isn't the reason why I'm a bit of a brand geek. I think the attraction for me is that brands have, or in some cases, are, stories. I have always been fascinated by how and why people can relate to those stories, in the same way that I am fascinated by how anyone relates to any story! If you have any interest in the business of brands, this is a fascinating read and it delivers on far more fronts than just the business one.
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|summary=''Starting a creative business has never been easier.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749471735</amazonuk>
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''If not now, when?''
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I know that I'm not alone in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into a business.  There's a lot of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use and there are a lot of people who have been delighted to accept what I make as gifts. Selling would offset the costs, which can be quite considerable and it could be fun to do, couldn't it?  But where to start?  What do I need to think about?  Well, the first thing anyone who is considering turning a crafting hobby into a business should do is to read ''Making a Living''.
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jacky Fitt
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|isbn=suppl_stafl
|title=How to Get Inside Someone's Mind and Stay There: The business owner's guide to content marketing and confident copywriting
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|title=Supply Chain 20/20: A Clear View  on the Local Multiplier Effect for Book Lovers
|rating=4
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|author=Kim Staflund
|genre=Business and Finance
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|rating=4.5
|summary=As a small business owner I know it's difficult - sometimes it feels impossible - to get your message out to your potential customers in a manner which is going to reward the effort which you put into it.  Besides, how do you know who your potential customers are?  How do you know how they would like to be approached?  In fact, how are you going to get inside their head - and stay there?  Jacky Fitt has written a comprehensive guide which takes you through what's needed and allows you to develop your own action plan for your business.
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|genre=Reference
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00MXXQ5GU</amazonuk>
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|summary=So, you've finished writing your book and you think the hard work is all done?  You're convinced that all you need to do now is get it published and the money will start rolling in?
 +
 
 +
Wrong and wrong again.  You presumably wrote the book because you wanted to - and you had a talent for delivering the written word.  You knew your subject back to front.  Now you're going to have to get to grips with the book supply chain, which even parts of the publishing industry believe to be wrong but it's too difficult to change and no one wants to be the first to tryThen, when you ''finally'' have a copy of the book in your hands, you're going to have to work out how to sell it - because it ''is'' going to be down to you.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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|author=Gareth Murphy
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{{Frontpage
|title=Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry
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|isbn=0008350388
 +
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
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|author=Otegha Uwagba
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Entertainment
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|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It’s not difficult to find a history of popular or recorded music, written around the musical names who made it happen.  ''Cowboys and Indies'' takes a different approachWhile there is plenty in these pages about several of the most important stars, there is just as much again if not sometimes more about the movers and shakers, the inventors, managers, impresarios, and record label founders without whom there would not have been a record industry.
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|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781254524</amazonuk>
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''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
 +
 
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Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old.  Her sisters were seven and nine.  It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later.  The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible.  There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested.  When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car.  For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
 
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{{newreview
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|author=Ann Handley
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{{Frontpage
|title=Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content
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|isbn=reed3
|rating=4
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|title=Why You? 101 Interview Questions You'll Never Fear Again (3rd Edition)
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|summary=Ann Handley has compiled a one stop resource for writers of any kind of marketing and promotional material. Assuming you have command of basic vocabulary and know how to write a simple sentence, Handley takes you through everything you could ever need to know for a huge variety of platforms, purposes and problems, in order to better represent your business on the internet.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00PJOTG4I</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Why You? 101 Interview Questions You'll Never Fear Again
 
 
|author=James Reed
 
|author=James Reed
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=No-one likes doing job interviews.  This includes most recruiting managers, but for candidates it is one of life's most stressful situations. No matter whether it's the next step in our carefully planned career or ''just a job'', no matter whether it's our first job or our fifteenth, that 45 minutes to an hour of conversation has the potential to fundamentally affect our happiness for the foreseeable future.
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|summary=Six years on from the original edition, the book is being re-issued with a bonus chapter entitled ''The Future of Work'' which includes an additional 10 questions.   I've come to this some 6 years after reviewing the original book and my life has changed significantly in the meantime. I'm no longer working in middle-management having opted for a down-shift into reduced hours freelancing to enable me to focus on other (not necessarily paying) work.  I can therefore relate to the first point made in this chapter namely that independence and flexibility are core skills that employees need to have.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241970210</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Encyclopedia Paranoiaca
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|isbn=3110706075
|author=Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf
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|title=Making a Difference: Leadership, Change and Giving Back the Independent Director Way
 +
|author=Gerry Brown
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=We're screwed.  Wherever we look, whatever we think of doing, there is a reason why we shouldn't be doing it, and people to back that reason up with scientific data.  Take any aspect of your daily life – what you eat, how you work, how you rest even, what you touch – all have problems that could provoke a serious illness or worse.  And outside that daily sphere there are economic disasters, nuclear meltdowns, errant AI scientists and passing comets that could turn our world upside down at the blink of an eye.  Perhaps then you better read this book first – for it may well turn out to be your last…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649213</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Price of Fish A New Approach to Wicked Economics and Better Decisions
 
|author=Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=Don't be put off by the title. The Price of Fish isn't just a treatise on how the local fishmonger chooses to mark up his prize catch.
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|summary=''You're not there to run the organisation.  You are there to make sure that it is run properly.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886224</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Gerry Brown is passionate about the benefits which Independent Directors can bring to a board - not just a corporate board, but the board of an NHS Trust, a university, a sports organisation or a charity.  He's particularly keen that there's increased diversity on these boards and feels that this would help to avoid some of the scandals (Oxfam, Kids Company - we're thinking about you) which have occurred in recent years.  For this to happen, boards need to have a wider field of people to choose from when they're looking for an ID.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Steve J Martin, Noah J Goldstein and Robert B Cialdini
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|isbn=3030513025
|title=The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence
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|title=The Independent Director in Society: Our current crisis of governance and what to do
|rating=4
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|author=Gerry Brown, Andrew Kakabadse and Filipe Morais
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=It's a commonly-held belief that if you want to advance your business - bring in the extra money, get more customers and generally move up a step - then you're going to have to spend big money and bring in the experts.  Martin, Goldstein and Cialdini tackle the problem from the other end: sometimes it's the smallest, least expensive and quick changes which can bring about the improvement that you need.  In ''The small BIG'' they offer over fifty tips, hints, ideas which can make the difference.  Sometimes they cost nothing, but bring in millions.  Occasionally they require a small investment of your time, but it can be as little as five minutes.
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|summary=Independent Director: ''a job for which no one is qualified''  (''Financial Times'')
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781252742</amazonuk>
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Independent Director: ''An independent director is a member of the board of directors who (1) do not have a material relationship with the company, (2) is not part of the company's executive team, and (3) is not involved with the day-to-day operations of the company.  (Corporate Finance Institute)
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Gerry Brown, Andrew Kakabadse and Filipe Morais feel that the relationship between the executive members of boards and the independent directors (formerly known as non-executive directors), trustees or governors of organisations is frequently unbalanced. The function of the independent director is to have general oversight of the executive side of the board - to spot when and where things are going wrong - but all too often the relationship is too cosy, too antagonistic or the independent director lacks the knowledge and/or experience to understand what's happening or to know how to intervene. Covid-19 has highlighted the failings and weaknesses of leadership and governance and you might be tempted to think that these are extraordinary times and that all will be well once we get back to 'normal' but a pandemic was predicted and modelled in the past and there has been a general failure to prepare for what has happened - and is still happening.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=William Poundstone
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|isbn=0241453585
|title=How to Predict the Unpredictable: The Art of Outsmarting Almost Everyone
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|title=Banking On It: How I Disrupted an Industry
|rating=4
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|author=Anne Boden
|genre=Reference
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|rating=5
|summary=William Poundstone believes that we are all in the business of predicting, whether it be something as minor as playing rock, paper, scissors to pay a bar bill though to anticipating how the housing or stock markets are going to move. Now, I'm not particularly competitive - if whatever it is means ''that'' much to someone else then I'd rather let them have it - so this book didn't appeal to me on the basis of doing better than someone else, but I was interested in how it might be possible to predict what is going to happen.  So, care to predict how it stacked up?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780744072</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=The Economist
 
|title=Pocket World in Figures 2015
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Reference
 
|summary=There are people who don't understand the joy of raw data: no accompanying analysis (or spin) - just a collection of figures relevant to a particular circumstance.  If you're one of those people then this book will mean little to you, but if you want a pocket (well, certainly handbag or briefcase) work of reference then this book will be a treasure.  I once gave a copy to a diplomat and he kept his wife awake until the early hours as he came across another gem which she had to know without delay.  The 2015 edition is the twenty fourth in the series - and diplomatic (and similar) spouses everywhere should prepare themselves for the onslaught.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781252734</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alannah Moore
 
|title=Create Your Own Online Store (using WordPress) in a Weekend
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=I've run a website for over eight years now but I've always shied away from any inclusion of e-commerce on the siteIt seemed like too large a subject, too much complexity and choice and the possibility of problems which could go disastrously wrong.  I first encountered Alannah Moore when I read [[The Creative Person's Website Builder by Alannah Moore|The Creative Person's Website Builder]] and was impressed by the way that she approached her subject, so when I had the opportunity to see how to create an online store in a weekend, I jumped at the chance.
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|summary=Anne Boden had an impressive track record in the financial services sector: she had thirty years experience at a senior level including Group Chief Operating Officer at Allied Irish BankAIB was in the throes of recovering from the 2008 financial crisis when she arrived and she was one of the first to realise that banks needed to do things differently.  AIB thought it was at the cutting edge when it proposed opening a branch which allowed customers to access their accounts via a terminal. Boden took things a step further, realising that customers could access their accounts from their homes: the old branch network, employing thousands of people, would soon become redundant.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781571430</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Money: The Unauthorised Biography
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|isbn=3110641119
|author=Felix Martin
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|title=The Journey Mapping Playbook: A Practical Guide to Preparing, Facilitating and Unlocking the Value of Customer Journey Mapping
|rating=4
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|author=Jerry Angrave
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=Occasionally books are not exactly what they seem.  When I picked this up, read the blurb and began the contents inside, I was expecting a kind of biography or history of money through the agesThe opening chapter, a brief sketch of the economy of the Pacific island of Yap and how it worked, seemed to confirm thisIt tells us how in the late nineteenth century Yap, east of the Philippine Islands, had an unwieldy coinage consisting of stone wheels around 12ft in diameter, called fei.  The population did not carry these around, let alone own them like we possess pounds and pence, as they were part of a sophisticated system of credit management.
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|summary=I had no idea what 'journey mapping' was until I read this playbook but any business that engages with their customers will benefit from reading the book and acting on the contents.  You're going to learn how to run a workshop to discover what it feels like to be one of your own customersAt this point, please don't say 'oh (expletive deleted) not another workshop' because this is going to be fun and you're going to be surprised by what emerges.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578522</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard Hytner
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|isbn=3110641291
|title=Consiglieri: Leading from the Shadows
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|title=The Radical Innovation Playbook: A Practical Guide for Harnessing New, Novel or Game-Changing Breakthroughs
|rating=3.5
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|author=Olga Kokshagina and Allen Alexander
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=I've always been fascinated by the existence of that shadowy figure, the consigliere, in stories about the MafiaHe - and it was always a man - appeared to be full of wisdom, with the interests of the family at heart and without an ambitious bone in his body, or so it would seem.  It was the title of Richard Hytner's book which drew me in - along with the idea that coming top is sometimes second best.  That seemed to go against everything that I'd ever been brought up to believe.  So - does he make a good case for being the second in command?
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|summary=So, why bother?  Every time you set out to do something new you end up with the same thing in a slightly different form and quite a bit of money spentWhy not just leave it as it is?  After all, it's ''roughly'' working, isn't it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250464</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life
 
|author=Uri Gneezy and John List
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Wow! This is a most surprising economics book. 
 
  
Behavioral economists (if you’ll excuse the American spelling) investigate people’s buying behaviour and consuming patternsI guess we know about that already because supermarkets here lull us into buying three for the price of two, to come back next week for £10 off a £100, or to garner extra points on a loyalty card (Oh why can’t they just go for a cheaper price at the point of sale? Why do profits have to be in double percentage point increases year on year?). A fair bit of manipulation to ensure that a company survives is already part and parcel of our lives. If you’d asked me before I read this book, I would have lined up that sort of consumer marketing psychology alongside banking as profiteering. However … these guys are different: they really do seem to care about the plight of the underprivileged, and they come from an academic setting, rather than a commercial one.
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You might not have said it, but you've probably thought itYou've also thought the small, incremental improvements which you have been able to make - the optimisation of your core business with cost efficiencies wherever possible, the extension of your existing products into new areas - haven't really delivered in terms of ''growth''. It's been manageable and largely risk-free but you could easily be challenged by a competitor who takes a more radical approach.  You've merely kept the business ticking over and there's a nagging suspicion in the back of your mind that an organisation designed for the twentieth century might not survive in the twenty-first.  What you need is innovation - ''radical'' innovation.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946747</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Robert Kelsey
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|isbn=1472962044
|title=Get Things Done: What Stops Smart People Achieving More and How You Can Change
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|title=Creating Value Through Technology: Discover the Tech that Can Transform Your Business
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|author=Andrew Hampshire
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary= We're all so busy these days it's easy to veer between headless chicken and cherry picking modes, or at least it is for me(I really hope my boss isn’t reading this!) In fact procrastination is my super power which was why I grabbed [[:Category:Robert Kelsey|Robert Kelsey's]] book from the shelf with excited anticipation: in a self-help book with one of the longest titles known to man, he promises to help us become more efficient time managers and to stop putting things off.
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|summary=I was once told that 'technology' is anything that happens after you're eighteen, so there's been a lot of technology in my life.  I once worked for a manager who judged if an accountant was reputable by establishing whether or not they had a typewriterTimes  - thankfully - have moved on. Nowadays the problem is that someone running a business doesn't have the time to keep up with constant innovation and they might also be scared because previous IT investments haven't delivered as expected.  It's also a fact that no one develops a business because they have the knowledge of the required technology, so they start off in conversations about technology feeling that they're at a disadvantage.  They need help, but they frequently don't know what help they need.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857083082</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Wolf of Wall Street
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|isbn=1526362759
|author=Jordan Belfort
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|title=Dosh: How to Earn It, Save It, Spend It, Grow It, Give It
|rating=2.5
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|author=Rashmi Sirdeshpande
|genre=Autobiography
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|rating=5
|summary=As if we didn't have enough excuses to appreciate the 'Masters of the Universe' of the financial sector. After the tax dodging, the bonus scamming, price fixing and the valiant attempt to bring down the entire world economy comes Jordan Belfort aka the Wolf of Wall StreetTo be fair to Belfort, he plied his trade long before the most recent financial meltdown. Still, he's managed to piggy back the latest crash via a best selling book which has been re-released to coincide with a film adaptation starring Leonardo Dicaprio.
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444778129</amazonuk>
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|summary=What a relief!  A book about money, for children, with clear explanations of what it is, why it matters, how to acquire more of it (nope - robbing banks is out) and what you can do with it when you've managed to get hold of it.  Your reasons for wanting money don't matter: we all need it to some extent. You might want to go into business, be a clever shopper, a saver (you might even become an ''investor'') and there might be something you really, ''really'' want to buyThere's also the possibility of using to do good in the world.
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Live At the Brixton Academy: A riotous life in the music business
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|author= Linda Scott
|author=Simon Parkes and J S Rafaeli
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|title= The Double X Economy
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Entertainment
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|genre= Politics and Society
|summary=Who on earth would want to buy and run a live music venue in deepest Brixton, and manage to keep it running for fifteen years, transforming it against all the odds into what becomes one of Britain’s most iconic establishments of its kind?  Such an undertaking calls for somebody with special managerial skills who can keep one step ahead of the game, walking a precarious tightrope, keeping gangsters, punters, promoters and the local authorities onside. It also requires a good deal of luck.
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|summary='' Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in the world''. It's a bold statement for an opening chapter, but it's far from hyperbole as the following pages explain. This book shines a light on what is happening in different places, and the impact on the local and world economy. What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling of young women into marriage, and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689554</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571353606
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Chip Heath and Dan Heath
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|isbn=0349424926
|title=Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions in Life and Work
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|title=Life's Work: 12 Proven Ways to Fast-Track Your Career
 +
|author=James Reed
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=I don't have a problem with making decisions, probably because I've always tended to the view that it's better to make a decision and get on with life than haver and waste time in limbo.  With a few notable exceptions it's served me well, but when ''Decisive'' appeared on my desk it struck me that there could be advantages to improving the quality of the decisions tooThe Heath brothers have a good history of collaborating on such subjects and delivering books which open the mind.
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|summary=Do you have a guaranteed and more-than-adequate income which will last the rest of your life?  Do you have no need to work, either for income or fulfilment?  If you even hesitate over either of those questions then you really ought to read ''Life's Work': 12 Proven Ways to Fast-Track Your Career''.  If you're not yet in work or considering that you might need to make some changes then this is the book you needJames Reed is the chairman and chief executive of REED, Britain's biggest and best-known name in the recruitment industry. Who better to give you the advice you need?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847940862</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=John Lee
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|author=Anne Boden
|title=How to Make a Million Slowly: My Guiding Principles from a Lifetime of Investing
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|title=The Money Revolution
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
|genre=Business and Finance
+
|genre= Business and Finance
|summary=You should, of course, remember the old adage. 'If something seems too good to be true, it probably is'. If you find a slim book with the title 'How to Make a Million - Slowly' you shouldn't assume that you're about to have an entirely different relationship with your Bank Manager.  On the other hand John Lee - Lord Lee of Trafford - was the UK's first PEP/ISA millionaire, from an investment of £125,000, so there's no need to suspect that you'll open the book to find that you're told to 'do as I do'. This is a man who has done it and has a lot of good advice - after all, he wrote the ''My Portfolio Column'' in the Financial Times for fourteen years.
+
|summary= Money is changing. It might not be in the ways you think. We’re not suddenly getting a 3p or £3 coin (and have you ever even found a country that offers anything different to the 1, 2, 5 model?) We’re getting a lot more digital with payments, which seems to suit most people apart from charity collectors and the homeless on the street, but although this book has the subtitle that includes the word ''digital'', it’s not really about this either. Instead, it's about the ''management'' of your finances, and how to take control.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1292005084</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789660610
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=What if Money Grew on Trees?: Asking the big questions about economics
+
|isbn=1949395324
|author=David Boyle
+
|title=Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition
|rating=5
+
|author=Kalpesh Ashar
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|summary=In a climate of increasing economic uncertainty, we may often find ourselves exploring the big questions about money, finance and the global market. For example, during the recent downturn, experts were faced with such questions as ''What if we just kept printing more banknotes?'' and ''What would happen if the banks crashed again?'' These, and other thought-provoking speculative questions have been put to a team of experts and their answers have been recorded in a fascinating and absorbing little book called ''What if Money Grew on Trees?''
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178240046X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan H Palmer
 
|title=Talk Lean: Shorter Meetings. Quicker Results. Better Relations
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=When I think back to my days as an employee the memory of the meetings makes me shudder.  They were usually badly prepared and managed with little aim other than to tick a box so that someone could prove to ''his'' manager that he held meetings.  The waste of time was on a monumental scale and I doubt that I'm alone in thinking this. Include other meetings which you have on personal matters and you'll probably agree that it's rare to emerge feeling that you've achieved what you wanted to achieve - or that you haven't been manipulated.  Alan H Palmer has a plan for making meetings shorter and getting better results, but most importantly (for me) he wants you to be able to do it all openly, with no tricks, no gimmicks and complete honesty.
+
|summary=''Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted to Know ''gives people without an accounting background who have risen in a company the knowledge to understand the accounts which show how the company is doing. The book begins by looking at why financial accounting systems are necessary, then moves on to give an excellent overview of the types of accounting systems which will be encountered and the terms used. We then look in detail at the balance sheet, the income statement and the statement of cash flows...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857084976</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Curve: From Freeloaders into Superfans: The Future of Business
 
|author=Nicholas Lovell
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=business and Finance
 
|summary=Back in the 20th century, companies tried to sell the same products to everyone for the same price, and needed to shift massive amounts of them if they wanted to make a lot of money. Today, there is the potential to get just as much money from customers by selling expensive items or services to a small number of big spenders. Of course, the trick is getting enough of these big spenders to discover what you're marketing in the first place - and one of the best ways to do that is by giving something away for free. But how do they then turn these freeloaders into superfans? Author and consultant Nicholas Lovell gives us an overview of the changing world, and advice on how to take advantage of it, in this fascinating book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670923834</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Scott Berkun
+
|isbn=1946383627
|title=The Year Without Pants: WordPress.Com and the Future of Work
+
|title=Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know
 +
|author=Vibrant Publishers
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=Sometimes you find a book which you simply can't ''not'' read.  'The Year Without Pants' was one of them.  It's not what you're thinking (money's not ''that'' tight) - but the story of what happens when an old-school management guru goes back to the coal face to lead a team which had not had a leader before - to be accurate they'd not had teams - in a revolutionary company which takes remote working to the extremeMembers of Scott Berkun's team lived all over the world and worked for a company which had largely gone beyond email, had headquarters which were rarely used and had no rules.  So, why did I ''have'' to read the book?  Well, the company in question is Automattic which brings us WordPress, the open source software which powers fifty million websites.  I run a website which uses open-source software - and I've been in business for the last seven and a half years with someone to whom I've never even spoken.
+
|summary=I'm capable of drawing up a profit and loss account (income statement in the USA) and a balance sheet and I do so for my own business and for another organisationThe accounts give me ''broadly'' what I need: I know whether we're making a profit or a loss and I can look at the expenses and see what looks as though it could be trimmed back in future yearsMy problem was that the accounts didn't really give me any help in making decisions, which was why I turned to ''Cost Accounting and Management'', part of Vibrant Publishers' Self-Learning and Management series...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1118660633</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Leo Gough
+
|isbn=1072549271
|title=The Con Men: A History of Financial Fraud and the Lessons You Can Learn
+
|title=The Simple Act of Self-Publishing With Amazon: A Simple Step by Step Guide
|rating=4
+
|author=Georgianne Landy-Kordis
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|summary=Most people will recognise the now-infamous Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford as crooks who swindled thousands of investors of their hard-earned savings but at one time these individuals had gained stellar reputations in the financial world. In fact  Madoff was a former chairman of NASDAQ (originally the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations - now the second-largest stock market comparing to official stock exchanges by market capitalization in the world) and well respected.  He’s currently serving 150 in prison for running a 65 billion dollar Ponzi scheme, whilst Stanford was sentenced to 110 years for the same offence.  How did they get away with it?  This book will tell you how.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273751344</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Robert Rowland Smith
 
|title=The Reality Test: Still Relying on Strategy?
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Business and Finance
 
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=If you are in business the chances are that you know there are areas in which you need help, or - at the very least - could improveSometimes it's quite difficult to quantify ''where'' you need the help, but you're probably quite sure about what you ''don't'' need and that's best summed up as too much science, jargon you don't understand or anything that you have to wade through to come up with the conclusion that you were doing it roughly right in the first placeA good starting point is a book which you can dip into as you need and which edges your thinking into areas it's not been into for a while.
+
|summary=I frequently meet authors who are struggling to be published by the traditional houses, but when I suggest self-publishing they explain that they don't have the big bucks required to go down that road with Author Solutions or Matador or their likeI then ask if they've considered Kindle and the answer is, inevitably, that they wouldn't know where to start.  I can empathise with that.  Despite having used a computer for about thirty years, running most of my life ''and'' a website online, I'm still nervous when it comes to starting something new.  I like someone to hold my hand as I go through it for the first timeThat was why I was very interested when ''The Simple Act of Self Publishing With Amazon'' came across my desk...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250790</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Children's Non-Fiction Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 11:17, 27 March 2024


0241636604.jpg

Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. Full Review

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Review of

A Beautiful Way to Coach by Fiona Parashar

5star.jpg Business and Finance

So what am I doing reading this book, using this book, and being audacious enough to review it? Truth is I bought it out of curiosity. I was at an on-line launch for the book and Fiona’s description of her Vision Days appealed to me. I wanted to see if there were things in there that I could use with someone I am currently helping / supporting / trying to mentor – without committing them to a full day, which I know would send them scurrying for their burrow. I also wanted to see if I could give myself a Vision Day, to bring me away from their vision and back to my own. Full Review

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Review of

Disaster in the Boardroom: Six Dysfunctions Everyone Should Understand by Gerry Brown and Randall S Peterson

5star.jpg Business and Finance

Boards must act in the best interests of their stakeholders and ensure that they are well-managed and financially secure. This might seem obvious but a series of disasters - some of which have resulted in death or the collapse of a major company - have left interested parties asking what the board was doing. Where were they? Occasionally the boards were unaware of what was happening or they preferred to turn a blind eye, leaving watchers wondering which was worse - ignorance or criminality. The 21st century has delivered some major company scandals but what has happened is nothing new: Gerry Brown and Randall S Peterson give us a very readable trip through such major debacles as railway mania, the South Sea Bubble and even tulip mania. Over three centuries we seem to have learned very little. Full Review

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Review of

Making a Living: How to Craft Your Business by Sophie Rochester

5star.jpg Crafts

Starting a creative business has never been easier.

If not now, when?

I know that I'm not alone in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into a business. There's a lot of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use and there are a lot of people who have been delighted to accept what I make as gifts. Selling would offset the costs, which can be quite considerable and it could be fun to do, couldn't it? But where to start? What do I need to think about? Well, the first thing anyone who is considering turning a crafting hobby into a business should do is to read Making a Living. Full Review

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Review of

Supply Chain 20/20: A Clear View on the Local Multiplier Effect for Book Lovers by Kim Staflund

4.5star.jpg Reference

So, you've finished writing your book and you think the hard work is all done? You're convinced that all you need to do now is get it published and the money will start rolling in?

Wrong and wrong again. You presumably wrote the book because you wanted to - and you had a talent for delivering the written word. You knew your subject back to front. Now you're going to have to get to grips with the book supply chain, which even parts of the publishing industry believe to be wrong but it's too difficult to change and no one wants to be the first to try. Then, when you finally have a copy of the book in your hands, you're going to have to work out how to sell it - because it is going to be down to you. Full Review

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Review of

We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

5star.jpg Politics and Society

To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman. The Bookseller 29 June 2021

Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford. Full Review

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Review of

Why You? 101 Interview Questions You'll Never Fear Again (3rd Edition) by James Reed

5star.jpg Business and Finance

Six years on from the original edition, the book is being re-issued with a bonus chapter entitled The Future of Work which includes an additional 10 questions. I've come to this some 6 years after reviewing the original book and my life has changed significantly in the meantime. I'm no longer working in middle-management having opted for a down-shift into reduced hours freelancing to enable me to focus on other (not necessarily paying) work. I can therefore relate to the first point made in this chapter namely that independence and flexibility are core skills that employees need to have. Full Review

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Review of

Making a Difference: Leadership, Change and Giving Back the Independent Director Way by Gerry Brown

4star.jpg Business and Finance

You're not there to run the organisation. You are there to make sure that it is run properly.

Gerry Brown is passionate about the benefits which Independent Directors can bring to a board - not just a corporate board, but the board of an NHS Trust, a university, a sports organisation or a charity. He's particularly keen that there's increased diversity on these boards and feels that this would help to avoid some of the scandals (Oxfam, Kids Company - we're thinking about you) which have occurred in recent years. For this to happen, boards need to have a wider field of people to choose from when they're looking for an ID. Full Review

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Review of

The Independent Director in Society: Our current crisis of governance and what to do by Gerry Brown, Andrew Kakabadse and Filipe Morais

5star.jpg Business and Finance

Independent Director: a job for which no one is qualified (Financial Times)

Independent Director: An independent director is a member of the board of directors who (1) do not have a material relationship with the company, (2) is not part of the company's executive team, and (3) is not involved with the day-to-day operations of the company. (Corporate Finance Institute)

Gerry Brown, Andrew Kakabadse and Filipe Morais feel that the relationship between the executive members of boards and the independent directors (formerly known as non-executive directors), trustees or governors of organisations is frequently unbalanced. The function of the independent director is to have general oversight of the executive side of the board - to spot when and where things are going wrong - but all too often the relationship is too cosy, too antagonistic or the independent director lacks the knowledge and/or experience to understand what's happening or to know how to intervene. Covid-19 has highlighted the failings and weaknesses of leadership and governance and you might be tempted to think that these are extraordinary times and that all will be well once we get back to 'normal' but a pandemic was predicted and modelled in the past and there has been a general failure to prepare for what has happened - and is still happening. Full Review

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Review of

Banking On It: How I Disrupted an Industry by Anne Boden

5star.jpg Business and Finance

Anne Boden had an impressive track record in the financial services sector: she had thirty years experience at a senior level including Group Chief Operating Officer at Allied Irish Bank. AIB was in the throes of recovering from the 2008 financial crisis when she arrived and she was one of the first to realise that banks needed to do things differently. AIB thought it was at the cutting edge when it proposed opening a branch which allowed customers to access their accounts via a terminal. Boden took things a step further, realising that customers could access their accounts from their homes: the old branch network, employing thousands of people, would soon become redundant. Full Review

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Review of

The Journey Mapping Playbook: A Practical Guide to Preparing, Facilitating and Unlocking the Value of Customer Journey Mapping by Jerry Angrave

5star.jpg Business and Finance

I had no idea what 'journey mapping' was until I read this playbook but any business that engages with their customers will benefit from reading the book and acting on the contents. You're going to learn how to run a workshop to discover what it feels like to be one of your own customers. At this point, please don't say 'oh (expletive deleted) not another workshop' because this is going to be fun and you're going to be surprised by what emerges. Full Review

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Review of

The Radical Innovation Playbook: A Practical Guide for Harnessing New, Novel or Game-Changing Breakthroughs by Olga Kokshagina and Allen Alexander

5star.jpg Business and Finance

So, why bother? Every time you set out to do something new you end up with the same thing in a slightly different form and quite a bit of money spent. Why not just leave it as it is? After all, it's roughly working, isn't it?

You might not have said it, but you've probably thought it. You've also thought the small, incremental improvements which you have been able to make - the optimisation of your core business with cost efficiencies wherever possible, the extension of your existing products into new areas - haven't really delivered in terms of growth. It's been manageable and largely risk-free but you could easily be challenged by a competitor who takes a more radical approach. You've merely kept the business ticking over and there's a nagging suspicion in the back of your mind that an organisation designed for the twentieth century might not survive in the twenty-first. What you need is innovation - radical innovation. Full Review

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Review of

Creating Value Through Technology: Discover the Tech that Can Transform Your Business by Andrew Hampshire

4.5star.jpg Business and Finance

I was once told that 'technology' is anything that happens after you're eighteen, so there's been a lot of technology in my life. I once worked for a manager who judged if an accountant was reputable by establishing whether or not they had a typewriter. Times - thankfully - have moved on. Nowadays the problem is that someone running a business doesn't have the time to keep up with constant innovation and they might also be scared because previous IT investments haven't delivered as expected. It's also a fact that no one develops a business because they have the knowledge of the required technology, so they start off in conversations about technology feeling that they're at a disadvantage. They need help, but they frequently don't know what help they need. Full Review

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Review of

Dosh: How to Earn It, Save It, Spend It, Grow It, Give It by Rashmi Sirdeshpande

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

What a relief! A book about money, for children, with clear explanations of what it is, why it matters, how to acquire more of it (nope - robbing banks is out) and what you can do with it when you've managed to get hold of it. Your reasons for wanting money don't matter: we all need it to some extent. You might want to go into business, be a clever shopper, a saver (you might even become an investor) and there might be something you really, really want to buy. There's also the possibility of using to do good in the world. Full Review

0571353606.jpg

Review of

The Double X Economy by Linda Scott

5star.jpg Politics and Society

Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in the world. It's a bold statement for an opening chapter, but it's far from hyperbole as the following pages explain. This book shines a light on what is happening in different places, and the impact on the local and world economy. What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling of young women into marriage, and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering? Full Review

0349424926.jpg

Review of

Life's Work: 12 Proven Ways to Fast-Track Your Career by James Reed

5star.jpg Business and Finance

Do you have a guaranteed and more-than-adequate income which will last the rest of your life? Do you have no need to work, either for income or fulfilment? If you even hesitate over either of those questions then you really ought to read Life's Work': 12 Proven Ways to Fast-Track Your Career. If you're not yet in work or considering that you might need to make some changes then this is the book you need. James Reed is the chairman and chief executive of REED, Britain's biggest and best-known name in the recruitment industry. Who better to give you the advice you need? Full Review

1789660610.jpg

Review of

The Money Revolution by Anne Boden

4star.jpg Business and Finance

Money is changing. It might not be in the ways you think. We’re not suddenly getting a 3p or £3 coin (and have you ever even found a country that offers anything different to the 1, 2, 5 model?) We’re getting a lot more digital with payments, which seems to suit most people apart from charity collectors and the homeless on the street, but although this book has the subtitle that includes the word digital, it’s not really about this either. Instead, it's about the management of your finances, and how to take control. Full Review

1949395324.jpg

Review of

Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition by Kalpesh Ashar

4star.jpg Business and Finance

Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted to Know gives people without an accounting background who have risen in a company the knowledge to understand the accounts which show how the company is doing. The book begins by looking at why financial accounting systems are necessary, then moves on to give an excellent overview of the types of accounting systems which will be encountered and the terms used. We then look in detail at the balance sheet, the income statement and the statement of cash flows... Full Review

1946383627.jpg

Review of

Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know by Vibrant Publishers

4.5star.jpg Business and Finance

I'm capable of drawing up a profit and loss account (income statement in the USA) and a balance sheet and I do so for my own business and for another organisation. The accounts give me broadly what I need: I know whether we're making a profit or a loss and I can look at the expenses and see what looks as though it could be trimmed back in future years. My problem was that the accounts didn't really give me any help in making decisions, which was why I turned to Cost Accounting and Management, part of Vibrant Publishers' Self-Learning and Management series... Full Review

1072549271.jpg

Review of

The Simple Act of Self-Publishing With Amazon: A Simple Step by Step Guide by Georgianne Landy-Kordis

4.5star.jpg Business and Finance

I frequently meet authors who are struggling to be published by the traditional houses, but when I suggest self-publishing they explain that they don't have the big bucks required to go down that road with Author Solutions or Matador or their like. I then ask if they've considered Kindle and the answer is, inevitably, that they wouldn't know where to start. I can empathise with that. Despite having used a computer for about thirty years, running most of my life and a website online, I'm still nervous when it comes to starting something new. I like someone to hold my hand as I go through it for the first time. That was why I was very interested when The Simple Act of Self Publishing With Amazon came across my desk... Full Review

Move on to Newest Children's Non-Fiction Reviews