Fast Company's Greatest Hits, edited by Vamos and Lidsky

It's a veritable feast of ideas about business and leadership taken from the best articles to appear in FAST COMPANY business magazine over the last 10 years. The magazine is always full of fresh ideas written by the most interesting (and often unusual) thinkers in society, all with a business application. Over the decade it has been in existence, it has attracted the most edgy, entertaining and insightful writings from or about a wide range of issues from an article on courage by Senator John McCain to how they train people in Cirque de Soleil the hugely successful circus company. The perspective is not always what you would expect - how about the lessons you can learn for causing change to stick from studies of compliance to food and exercise routines of patients with life threatening heart disease. No, research shows most of them don't change their diet or exercise, even in the face of death, so don't be surprised if your staff doesn't change their behaviour just because you asked them to. But some do change, come and hear why- and a host of other fascinating ideas

The Undercover Economist, Tim Harford

Who makes most money from the demand for cappuccinos early in the morning at Waterloo Station? Why is the stock market inherently illogical? How does the Mafia make money from laundries when street gangs pushing drugs don't? Who really benefits from immigration? How can China, in just 50 years, go from the world's worst famine to one of the greatest economic revolutions of all time, lifting a million people out of poverty every month? Looking at familiar situations in unfamiliar ways, through the eyes of an economist you will get a fresh explanation of the fundamental principles of the modern economy, illuminated by examples from the streets of London to the booming skyscrapers of Shanghai, to the sleepy canals of Bruges. Tim Harford, a Financial Times columnist, leaves behind the textbook jargon and equations, and provides really fascinating insights to life, using economic theory which he introduces so painlessly, that you hardly notice. Eye opening stuff so easily presented...