No matter how hard you try to prioritize your reading, magazines can really pile up rather quickly. So... I've just finally gotten to the April 7th issue of The Economist, and discovered its quarterly business book selection for April.

For those interested in the articles, you can find them through some of our electronic resources (I recommend EBSCO's Business Source Premier, available from home with a library card — I have put a link to the articles from Business Source Premier after each title) or on The Economist's website (if you're a subscriber). For those who are too impatient to read those, I've included for each book, based on the articles, a short squib.

Here are the five books featured in this issue (2 of which have appeared in this space earlier). Enjoy!

The Power of Habit: Why We Do what We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg
(Economist Review)

No. 1 on the New York Times business best-seller list in April. Personal, organizational and societal habits all come under the microscope, with examples of how these may be changed. Some changes are marketing driven, but all are important for us to understand better.

Finance and the Good Society, by Robert Shiller
(Economist Review)

It's unfashionable to praise finance these days. So when one of its earliest and most vocal critics has something positive to say we need to take note.

The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
Also available as an Audiobook.
(Economist Review)

No. 5 on the New York Times business best-seller list in April, No. 6 on from Nielsen BookScan as published in the April 7-8, 2012 Wall Street Journal (no longer on the top 10 as of April 21-22). As the world of work changes rapidly, workers, like entrepreneurs, must be willing to adapt - and maybe even rethink their careers entirely.

Sales Growth: Five Proven Strategies from the World's Sales Leaders, by Thomas Baumgartner, Homayoun Hatami and Jon Vander Ark — This should be available at NYPL soon.
(Economist Review) 

The Art of the Sale: Learning from the Masters about the Business of Life, by Philip Delves Broughton
(Economist Review)

Salespeople: love 'em or hate 'em; the folks in the trenches, they hold the front line. Treat the good ones well, 'cause without 'em, well...