Just the business
JAMES Belasco offers advice on how to adapt your company to take advantage of a changing business climate in Teaching the Elephant to Dance (Century, $159). The title was apparently inspired by the fact that elephants can be trained from youth to stay in one place, and many companies do the same and fail.
Edward de Bono, who gave us all Lateral Thinking and then Six Thinking Hats, has now come up with Six Action Shoes (Fontana, $74), which promises to explain how to take control of any business or life situation.
Bulls & Bears (Pelanduk, $118) by stock market trader C. E. M. Anderson is a strategic guide to the world of stocks and shares based on the author's experiences in more than 20 years of investing.
Studies on Economic Reforms and Development in the PRC (Chinese University Press, $195) is a joint effort by mainland researchers and Hongkong economists who look at five major areas of the Chinese economy: the fiscal system; money and banking; foreign trade; industrial structure; and sectoral development.
There's more on the mainland in China's Capital Market (Chinese University Press, $165) by Hu Yebi, assistant general manager at the China Agribusiness Development Trust and Investment Co. He discusses the contradiction inherent in establishing a capitalist-style stock market in a socialist country.
Looking at how to do business in the region as a whole is former Post feature writer Claudia Cragg who offers advice on achieving commercial success in the Asia-Pacific Rim in Hunting with the Tigers (Mercury, $322).
The Art of War was a classical treatise on military strategy written about 2,500 years ago by Sun Tzu and used by militarists as disparate as Mao Zedong and General Eisenhower. Now Pelanduk have published Sun Tzu & Management, ($108) giving the philosopher's views on business techniques.
Ivan Fallon's acclaimed biography of businessman James Goldsmith, Billionaire (Arrow, $87), now available in paperback, traces this uncanny gambler's life from childhood, through surviving the property crash of 1974 and the market crash of 1987, to his legal battles with the satirical British magazine Private Eye.
Anthony Bianco's Mad Dog (Pan, $140) concerns the rise and fall of Jeff Beck and Wall Street. Mr Beck was a major player in America's financial boom of the 1980s.
a man who made enemies and had numerous adventures in his pursuit of wealth.
