The 100 best business books of all time, by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten, published by Penguin

The main fascination of this book is to count how many of the nominated 100 you have actually read or heard of. My count was 24 read and 35 heard of, which seems rather too few for someone who is ‘in the business’. The natural reaction is to be critical of the list and look for obvious omissions - what, no ‘In Search of Excellence’? - or to scorn some of the inclusions - surely you can’t put ‘7 Habits of Effective People’ in the top 100?

The main benefit is that you can impress others by your knowledge of such a broad range of publications, supported by the excellent two/three page synopses for every one of the 100. More important it provides a great opportunity to check whether there are any important books out there that you should have been reading and need to catch up on. I expect that most of those involved in management learning are like me; we read the books that we come across or hear about rather than having any planned strategy; this book allows us to prepare a plan to fill the gaps.

The synopses are well written, providing the required overview while giving just enough information to make a judgment as to whether the book is worth reading.