Here is The Economist’s Best of 2004 list. You will definitely not find any reference to numbers or animals in any of these titles. I have the same problem with this list as Troy Worman had with our other lists – I haven’t read any of these.

• Why Globalization Works by Martin Wolf
• Global Crises, Global Solutions edited by Bjorn Lomborg
• Mr China: A Wall Street Banker, an Englishman, an ex-Red Guard and $418,000,000 Disappearing Day by Day by Tim Clissold [due out in Feburary 2005]
• The King of Sunlight: How William Lever Cleaned Up the World by Adam Macqueen [not available in US]
• The Modern Firm: Organisational Design for Performance and Growth by John Roberts
• The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by C.K. Prahalad
• Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It by Adam B. Jaffe and Josh Lerner
• Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America by Nomi Prins

You will also find Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton listed under their biographies section.

I know I am a little late on getting the Strategy and Business list posted, but here is a summary of the list with the books and the links to the articles. The first book under each heading s+b’s top shelf pick for that subject:

• Strategy
• Confronting Reality by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
• The Future of Competition by C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy
• Strategy Maps by Robert S. Kaplan and David
• Management
• The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company by Constance L. Hays
• Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development by Henry Mintzberg
• A Bias for Action: How Effective Managers Harness Their Willpower, Achieve Results, and Stop Wasting Time by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal
• Army Leadership Field Manual: Battle-Tested Wisdom for Leaders in Any Organization by Department of the Army
• The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works by Ricardo Semler
• The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the Worlds Greatest Manufacturer by Jeffery Liker
• Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming, and How to Prevent Them by Max Bazerman and Michael Watkins
• IT & Innovation
• The Keystone Advantage: What the New Dynamics of Business Ecosystems Mean for Strategy, Innovation, and Sustainability by Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien
• Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence Lessig
• The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad by Michael A. Cusumano
• Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage by Nicholas G. Carr
• Leadership
• Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value by Bill George
• Ready to Lead? A Story for Leaders and Their Mentors by Alan Price
• Why CEOs Fail: The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to the Top and How to Manage Them by David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo
• Testosterone Inc.: Tales of CEOs Gone Wild by Christopher Byron
• The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul ONeill by Ron Suskind
• Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
• Governance
• Back to the Drawing Board: Designing Corporate Boards for a Complex World by Colin B. Carter and Jay W. Lorsch
• Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value by Bill George
• Corporate Governance and Chairmanship: A Personal View by Sir Adrian Cadbury
• The Recurrent Crisis in Corporate Governance by Paul MacAvoy
The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business by Don Tapscott and David Ticoll
• Change Management
• Change Without Pain: How Managers Can Overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos, and Employee Burnout by Eric Abrahamson
• Building the Bridge as You Walk on It: A Guide for Leading Change by Robert E. Quinn
• Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds by Howard Gardner
• The Bubble
• Rational Exuberance: Silencing the Enemies of Growth and Why the Future Is Better Than You Think by Michael J. Mandel
• Origins of the Crash: The Great Bubble and Its Undoing by Roger Lowenstein
• Behavioral Economics
• The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life by Paul Seabright
• The Economy of Esteem: An Essay on Civil and Political Society by Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit
• The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz
• The New Consumer
• The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness by Virginia Postrel
• Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping by Paco Underhill
• On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense by David Brooks

Here is a link to our entry on Strategy + Business’ Best of 2003

Forbes.com has posted a list of their favorite books for 2004. They have a snappy slideshow with reviews of each of the titles.

1 (tied). Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow and The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind

3. The Truth About Drug Companies by Marcia Angell

4. The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

5. Trump: How to Get Rich by Donald Trump

6. The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

7. The Coming Generational Storm by Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns

8. Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois Frankel

9. The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach

10. Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin

Fast Company published a best of list on their blog last Friday. This I’ll list them back to you in the same Letterman-style that David Lidsky did.

11. Candyfreak by Steve Almond

10. Word Spy by Paul McFedries

9. The Allure of Toxic Leaders by Jean Lipman-Blumen

8. Why People Buy Things They Don’t Need by Pamela Danziger

7. Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin

6. Call of the Mall by Paco Underhill

5. The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

4. Unstuck by Keith Yamashita

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

2. Managers Not MBAs by Henry Mintzberg

1. The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by C.K. Prahalad