Business Fiction

Business and Pleasure shouldn't mix. Yet, that's exactly what I'm contemplating after Seattle's most eligible bachelor strolled into the diner where I work and made me an offer I'm having a hard time refusing. Beckett Anderson has the looks and money to get the attention of any woman, and yet he wants me to be the one at his beck and call. If I accept, I'm to be his assistant in and out of the boardroom. In exchange, I'd finally have a chance to use my college degree and escape the cycle of poverty I've known my entire life.

This collection by crime fiction master Raymond Chandler features four long stories in which private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a rich old guy from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may have been an extortionist.

As an expert handler of venomous snakes - and a smuggler of rare artifacts - Charles Raynaud is accustomed to danger. So the job body-guarding an old acquaintance about to come into a fortune shouldn't make him break a sweat. But when the attempts on the man's life nearly get Raynaud killed, he's left wondering: is he the killers' real target...?

This powerful, unsettling book gives us a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of global financial institutions by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. When it was first published, this national best-seller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank.

We Are All Weird is a celebration of choice, of treating different people differently and of embracing the notion that everyone deserves the dignity and respect that comes from being heard. The book calls for end of "mass" and for the beginning of offering people more choices, more interests, and giving them more authority to operate in ways that reflect their own unique values.

Professional businessman Johnathan Cummings finds himself on a business trip in Seattle, Washington, that promises more than just meetings and corporate dinners. This journey is his escape, an opportunity to explore his suppressed desires, far from familiar and prying eyes - notably those of his husband. Johnathan has long been a devoted partner, but the recent revelation of his husband's indiscretions has left him reeling and questioning the monogamous constraints they've agreed upon.

You know that post-vacation glow? Where you’re all sun-kissed and optimistic and determined to make changes in your life? Well, mine lasted for about five minutes. Until I walked into the office and saw Myles Salinger sitting in my boss’s chair. One look at his scowling face was enough to make me want to fly straight back to Europe. And no, he’s not getting any of the donuts I brought in for the team. He doesn’t deserve them. You see, on paper, he’s my contemporary. In reality, he’s been my workplace nemesis for the last two years.

Like the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of the modern age, but they have never been the subject of a major biography... until now. Not long after the death of his father, Charles Koch, then in his early 30s, discovered a letter the family patriarch had written to his sons. "You will receive what now seems to be a large sum of money," Fred Koch cautioned. "It may either be a blessing or a curse."

While most people prefer the relative safety of working at a job for somebody else, others are more interested in the independence, excitement, and creative problem solving that are all part of starting your own business and being an entrepreneur. But as Ethan and Emily Tuttle learn in their latest adventure, being an entrepreneur isn't easy, especially when you re up against some tough competition. Join the twins as they dive into the ins and outs of becoming business owners, solving the many problems that pop up along the way!

When Izzy Spellman, PI, is arrested for the fourth time in three months, she writes it off as a job hazard. She's been (obsessively) keeping surveillance on a suspicious next door neighbor (suspect's name: John Brown), convinced he's up to no good - even if her parents (the management at Spellman Investigations) are not.

Increase customer satisfaction and reduce cost! Increase revenue growth and improve productivity! This guide will provide you with the tools you need to work with Six Sigma and see an improvement in your business.

UCLA psychologist and organizational consultant Dr. Robert Maurer provides a simple and proven effective technique for making major changes with minimal disruption. Applying the operational concept of kaizen - small, continual improvements - to common management challenges, managers can drive major improvements with a series of well-planned techniques for boosting quality, innovation, sales, and morale.

Edwin Lefevre was a stockbroker and an independent investor, as well as a novelist and writer of short stories. This lightly fictionalized account of the career of stock speculator Jesse Livermore was first published in 1923. Now, nearly 100 years later, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator remains highly recommended for an understanding of investment. Lefevre’s trading advice and analyses of market price movements are as relevant today as in 1923.

In 1984, The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer told the story of Apples first decade alongside the histories of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Now, completely revised and expanded, Return to the Little Kingdom is the definitive biography of Apple and its founders from the very beginning. Moritz brings readers inside the childhood homes of Jobs and Wozniak and records how they dropped out of college and founded Apple in 1976.

With Normal Gets You Nowhere, Kelly Cutrone invites us to get our freak on. History is full of successful, world-changing people who did not fit in. Think Nelson Mandela, Joan of Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, John Lennon, and Rosa Parks. Instead of changing themselves to accommodate the status quo or what others thought they should be, these people hung a light on their differences - and changed humanity in the process. “I know you don’t feel normal, so why are you trying to act it and prove to everyone you are?” Cutrone says.

Every manager learns from the same source: Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook. This valuable management handbook teaches new managers how to transform themselves from bitter and bewildered "little people" into fully functioning, paradigm-spewing management zombies.

Asking her older brother Charlie to train her softball team over spring break, Kristy is convinced that Charlie is a great coach, until he meets Angelica and is no longer able to pay attention to the kids.

The solution in each case was a focus on customer experience, the most powerful - and misunderstood - element of corporate strategy today. Customer experience is, quite simply, how your customers perceive their every interaction with your company. It’s a fundamental business driver. Here’s proof: over a recent five-year period during which the S&P 500 was flat, a stock portfolio of customer experience leaders grew 22 percent.

Two young men in the gold fields of California spend a last evening together as one of them, very sick, confronts his own imminent death. The tenderness between them may seem idealized, but you understand by listening to this story how premature death from accident and disease haunted the lives of far more westerners than death by violence.

It's been three months since Abi Logan last checked in on Abbey Glen, the celebrated whisky distillery she inherited. With her oversize wheaten terrier, Liam, by her side, Abi returns to the quaint Scottish village of Balfour. But her relaxing Highland homecoming takes a stressful turn when she unearths an unseemly bit of village history, welcomes a group of Japanese whisky enthusiasts, and becomes shepherdess to an unexpected flock of sheep - all within the first 24 hours. Still, nothing's more stressful than murder....