This tweet is my favorites of this past week:

lruettimann : My husband sneaks business books into the house when I travel. He should be ashamed.

WHOO HOOO!! Check it out! You are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero!, by Bob Powers. It just sounds FUN!

It's an adult choose-your-own-adventure and it pits you as a 30-something that is unable, or afraid, to make decisions. In the book you are a waiter/actor who's date winds up being taken for hostage - what will you do? Police? Get money? Get any help? Seek revenge? Kill someone? Only you decide.

Yes, finally a book for people (whether in business or personal ) that often feel that only if they didn't have to make a certain choice, or that if they could just go back and do something over again....

Of course, NOT making a choice IS a choice!

Says Paul Feig, the creator of "Freaks and Geeks" and the author of Superstud, "You are a miserable excuse for a person if you don't buy this hilarious book. Bob Powers is some kind of comedy genius or something. Frankly I'm scared."

]]> Misc. 2008-06-12T15:54:00-06:00 http://800ceoread.com/blog/archives/008221.html At 9am PST today (Friday), Dan Pink is hosting a *free* teleconversation with readers. He's taking questions and registrations. Dan's the author of the of A Whole New Mind and more recently, the first manga business book, The Adventures of... 8221@http://800ceoread.com/blog/ At 9am PST today (Friday), Dan Pink is hosting a *free* teleconversation with readers. He's taking questions and registrations.

Dan's the author of the of A Whole New Mind and more recently, the first manga business book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.

Enjoy!

There's a new book out called Cubicle Warfare: 101 Office Traps and Pranks by John Austin. Just a few pranks suggested:

"Pickled Chair" - adding a food smell to someone's office chair
"Walkie-Talkie God" - planting a walkie talkie in the ceiling tiles above someone's desk, then transmitting music, the news, or the gospel from a secure location
"Industrial Velcro" - velcro everything to the desk
"Elevator Fun" - post warnings like "Warning- Cables Are Rusting, Please Do Not Jump"
"Paper Hole Door" - place chads from the 3-hole punch along the top of a door
"Decaf Espresso" - not funny

Now, I don't condone carrying out any of the pranks suggested in this "Tactical Manual," but you will certainly enjoy a chuckle or two reading it.

* Meg's desk

** Jon's shanty

Just an interesting tidbit: Jon worked in the shanty for an entire week.

Ben mentioned us as the spot to find out about business books (thanks, Ben!). On that note, allow me to introduce you to what's available:

• Excerpts blog where you can read excerpts from the latest books.


• Podcasts. Clips from various audio books and our interviews with authors.


• ChangeThis. We call this the Harvard Business Review with a bit more color.

If there's ever a book you'd like to see, drop us a note: kate (at) 800ceoread.com. We'll see what we can do.

Another spot, there's a site called Goodreads; kind of the MySpace equivalent for readers. Where you can share what you're reading with friends, keep lists of what you have read and want to read, and find fellow readers to share book suggestions with.

Where else do you look?

I added my thoughts. Jump over and add yours.

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from "all the top" sites on the web. We've grouped these collections -- "aggregations" -- into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as environment, photography, science, celebrity gossip, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page -- we call this "single-page aggregation."

You can think of an Alltop site as a "dashboard," "table of contents," or even a "digital magazine rack" of the Internet.

He shared his passion and made his impression on the book world with two titles:

A telling profile of the bestselling author from Creativity-Online:

"Paul Arden was one of the most exceptional creative directors I've known, with an individualism and passion for perfection that resulted in some of the best advertising of the 80s and 90s," said Anthony Simonds Gooding, chairman of U.K. awards show D&AD, in a statement. "His idiosyncrasies made him unforgettable and his generosity and encouragement to students and young creatives is an example to all."

Mr. Arden was such a perfectionist that he was often maddeningly over budget, insisting that the smallest details be perfect, such as searching for a certain pair of wildly expensive spectacles to achieve just the right look on a face that would be seen briefly in passing in a TV spot.

His public appearances were talked about for years. In one industry talk, he stood silently next to a woman playing the cello. Another time he gave a speech with a naked man on stage, demonstrating that a person is a blank canvas. And he once hired an actor to babble onstage while Mr. Arden displayed meaningless charts. His point was that although no one in the audience knew what was going on, they would never forget it.

Vlasic, already burdened with financial problems, finally convinced Wal-Mart that the gallon jars being sold at $2.97 a pop wasn't working for them and requested a price adjustment. Wal-Mart responded by allowing them to decrease their jar size to just under half a gallon for the same price. Vlasic responded by filing for bankruptcy.

That's one of many stories. Of course, there are good and bad stories. As Charles explains, asking whether Wal-Mart is good or bad for America is like asking whether the IRS is good or bad. There's no right answer. For right now, at least, Wal-Mart just is.

Here's a photo Miss Rebecca took at the event.

Charles, if you're reading this, thanks for coming. Do come again.

Most of us here are missing the fun. But one of our own, Mr. Jon Mueller drummer extraodinare, will be down there sharing his music with the rest of the world. He'll be performing solo and with his band, Collections of Colonies of Bees.

If you're in Austin, find the Hideout to see Jon in action. The Bees show and Jon's solo act will both be happening on Thursday, March 13th. It's not to be missed. If you're like us, and not heading to Austin, you can check out the latest from Collections of Colonies of Bees over here.

And, while I'm on the subject of my talented cohorts...Mr. Aaron Schleicher and Mr. Ryan Schleicher (formerly inBubbleGuy) are part of a band named Juniper Tar. From months of work and weekends in rustic cabins, came their first album -- To the Trees. One reviewer defined their music as "rustic, electric and just-plain-hard to define tunes--maybe Walt Whitman fronting the late-era Byrds...They have developed the knack to take on miniature musical tangents and arrive back via ESP, not time signatures." You can check out Juniper Tar over here. You'll like what you hear.

Readers, you can imagine we are beaming like the proud mother. Congrats guys! If we don't say it enough, we're glad to be in such good company.

In our own election to find the best--the best business book that is---we are over 1650 votes cast. The top five choices right now are:

1. The Goal
2. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
3. Good To Great
4. The Effective Executive
5. How To Win Friends and Influence People

If for some crazy reason you have not voted for your favorites, click through to our Reader's Poll and make your voice heard.

[cue ending of America the Beautiful]

1.
Jessica Hagy's book Indexed is out today.




She shares stories via index cards. This past month, we published her ChangeThis manifesto. You can follow her on a regular basis at her blog.

2.
As I've mentioned before, Steve Farber who wrote two fables, The Radical Leap and The Radical Edge, is back to the writing board. His next book is due out in January of 2009 (seems like eons away). There's an unedited prologue over at his blog.

3.
More than 160 people have taken part in our Mystery Box offer with the money going to Room to Read. That's over $3000 that will be donated to help children around the world learn to read. Thank you for all your help! If you'd like your own Mystery Box (three books, all a surprise), read on.

To all the customers, authors, readers, agents, publicists, editors, and marketers, thank you.

-The gang