KEY POINTS:
Tomorrow the Business section of nzherald.co.nz begins a summer series called What They're Reading. Our online reporter Helen Twose has been out and about talking to a variety of New Zealand business figures about their favourite non-fiction reads during 2006.
To kick us off today, here's Whitcoulls' list of their top-selling business books for 2006.
Pension Panic
By Gareth Morgan
As Gareth Morgan says on the back of his book Pension Panic this book is intended to scare you. Its message is keep saving, but clean up your act, when it comes to investing those savings or its milk and arrowroots and mittens in bluff for you. So if you want the facts in plan straight talking language and you care about what your lifestyle will be like when you retire this is the book for you.
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Blink
By Malcom Gladwell
In his #1 bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. In BLINK, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others?
That's the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in BLINK.
Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, examining case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the New Coke, Gladwell shows how the difference between good decision making and bad has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but rather with the few particular details on which we focus.
BLINK displays all of the brilliance that has made Malcolm Gladwell's journalism so popular and his books such perennial bestsellers as it reveals how all of us can become better decision makers--in our homes, our offices, and in everyday life.
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Freakonomics
By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner.
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?
These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday lifefrom cheating and crime to sports and child-rearingand whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.
Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study
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Good to Great
By Jim Collins
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice.
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Pay Zero Taxes
By Peter Sibbald
All New Zealanders including business owners, wage and salary earners, rental property owners, investors and the retired are entitled to take advantage of every legitimate income tax break the IRD allows. This book contains hundreds of tips, techniques and strategies to increase your real income through income splitting strategies, tax shields, tax-smart investments, tax deductions and much, much and more!
This book does not involve breaking the law, bending the law or even pushing the boundaries. It works within clearly established laws and rules and to cover oneself so that all actions can be defended if challenged. This book offers some new ideas to a very old problem, tackling the subject in simple terms.
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Get Rich Slow
By Mary Holm
You can't get rich quickly without taking risks that could also make your poor quickly. I prefer to accumulate wealth in a safe but savvy way."
Most of us lack the nerve to be entrepreneurs, but award winning finance director and Herald contributor Mary Holm shows us how you can get richer slowly but surely and still sleep soundly. Whats more you can do it simply.
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Why we want you to be rich. Two men, One Message
By Donald Trump and Robert T Kiyosaki
Trump and Kiyoaski have joined forces in this book because of their shared passion for educations and their wish to emphasis the importance of a financial education - The world is facing many challenges and one of them is financial. The entitlement mentality is epidemic, creating people who expect their countries, employers, or families to take care of them.
Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki, both successful businessmen, are natural teachers and have joined forces to address these challenges. They believe you cannot solve money problems with money. You can only solve money problems with financial education. Trump and Kiyosaki want to teach you to be rich.
