I cannot imagine why I have not posted this before - I am greatly ashamed at myself for allowing almost a WHOLE month go by without any of you knowing what people across seas, valleys, mountains and portages were reading in July!  I guess it could be because I've been so busy this summer - going to the various Festivals in Milwaukee, seeing Rufus Wainwright in concert, visiting family and friends in neighboring Green Bay and Madison... or it could just be because I forgot to post it (Heaven forbid!!).

Well, please, dear readers, await no longer because yours truly has THE LIST of Top International Best Selling Books for July 2010!  (Now you 'll know what you all need to read before the Fall sets in):

Readers in Singapore have ordered: Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon and Lynn Carruthers (It's about unorthodox business practices - think water pistols in the conference rooms... ok not that extreme, but a must read for people who think they need a little 'shake up'.)

Australians last month were intrigued with The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World by Walter Kiechel.  What is so unique about this book is that it re-images corporate strategy and how it compares it to the modern workforce environment.

Canadians enjoyed The Talent Advantage: How to Attract and Retain the Best and the Brightest by Aklan Weiss and Nancy MacKay.  This handy book gives insight in using/tapping into talent within your company - sort of like a guide in maintaining and getting new talent especially in today's job market.

In July, people in Mexico had a hankering for a book entitled The Future of Management by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen - a great book about business innovation that will help maintain a companies momentum.

Costa Ricans dipped it's interest in 140 Characters by Dom Sagolla.  This little gem is about how to get your point across in today Twitter world.  short, precise and yet influential.  I'd explain further, but that'd be longer than 140 characters.

While it is late in the month to get you what was HOT HOT HOT in July, I do hope that each and everyone of you guys takes a moment to see if one of these books may be the right book for you, too!

Have a GREAT rest of August .... and I promise not to make it as long of a wait for the next line up of what the rest of the  world is reading.

The time has come to talk of many things....

O.K.. How about just one thing... Like the New Year's resolution you might have had that involved perhaps, reading more in 2010 (To look at the list, I think being more literate in 2010 was on Spain's resolutions list!).

Hmmmm... I wonder how many people across this grand planet of ours had that same resolution.... Hey! One way to find out is see what was HOT this winter....

Here are 8CR's Top Selling Books Internationally in January and February.

1 - Denmark- The Future of Management by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen

2 - United Kingdom - Crush It! Now Why is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

3 - Mexico - Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World's Most Powerful Consumers by Bridget Brennan

4 - Singapore - Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business by Ranjay Gulati

5 - Spain - Forgotten Half of Change: Achieving Greater Creativity Through Changes in Perception by Luc de Brabandere

6 - United Kingdom - Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath

7 - Spain - Entrepreneurial Mindset Strategy: Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian MacMillan

8 - Germany - Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

9 - Kenya - Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It by John Gerzema, Ed Lebar and Peter Stringham

10 - Spain - Building a Global Bank: The Transformation of Banco Santander by Mauro F. Guillen and Adrian Tschoegl

Rebecca pointed us all to Amazon's Best Books of 2007 last month, and in light of all the other lists coming out lately, I thought it'd be a good idea to revisit that list and highlight the business titles on it. There were three business categories--Business, Business Narratives, and Finance & Investing. So without further ado, the choice of Amazon's editors were...

Business:

*1-The Future of Management by Gary Hamel with Bill Breen

*2-Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath

*3-The Leadership Challenge (4th Edition) by James M. Kouzes

*4-The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun

*5-Off-ramps and On-ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success by Sylvia Ann Hewlett

*6-We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business by Barry Libert & John Spector

*7-The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees) by Patrick M. Lencioni

*8-Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't by Ram Charan

*9-Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want by James H. Gilmore & Joseph B Pine II

*10-Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose by

Rajendra S. Sisodia, David B. Wolfe & Jag Sheth

Business Narratives:

*1-The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan

*2-The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co. by William D. Cohan

*3-The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

*4-The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

*5-A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Gregory Clark

*6-Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich by Robert Frank

*7-Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams

*8-Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston

*9-The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

*10-All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make--and Spend--Their Fortunes by Peter W. Bernstein & Annalyn Swan

Finance & Investing:

*1-The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John C. Bogle

*2-Invest Like a Shark: How a Deaf Guy with No Job and Limited Capital Made a Fortune Investing in the Stock Market by James "RevShark" DePorre

*3-Wise Investing Made Simple: Larry Swedroe's Tales to Enrich Your Future by Larry Swedroe

*4-Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich by Jason Zweig

*5-Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning by Katherine Burton

*6-Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics by William Bonner & Lila Rajiva

*7-Bonds: The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth by Hildy Richelson & Stan Richelson

*8-Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse by Peter D. Schiff with John Downes

*9-A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation by Richard Bookstaber

*10-The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles

Wikinomics also made the list in the Computers & Internet category, as did David Weinberger's excellent book, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. The Age of Turbulence and The Shock Doctrine made the list in multiple categories, both making the Current Events list and The Age of Turbulence making the Memoirs list as well. The Black Swan also got the nod in Nonfiction.

And don't forget to check back Monday to see who made the shortlist for our first annual 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards.

The Future of Management by Gary Hamel with Bill Breen, Harvard Business School Press, 288 pages, $26.95 Hardcover, September 2007, ISBN 9781422102503

Gary Hamel is a smart man. After he published his best selling book, co-authored with C.K. Prahalad, called Competing for the Future, I saw him speak to a bunch of booksellers at our annual convention, and trust me--this guy knows what he's talking about. He talked about business to a bunch of people who really dig pretty much anything but business, and he got a standing ovation after his presentation.

In the past I struggled with reading Hamel because it felt as though his books had not been written to me. I had a hard time reading and understanding them because I felt like I couldn't relate to the subject. But The Future of Management is a book about a subject I have lived with for quite awhile.

Hamel believes that along with operational and strategic and product innovation, management innovation is essential to going forward. He believes that:

What ultimately constrains the performance of your organization is not its business model, not its operating model, but its management model. Hence this book. My goal is to help you become a 21st century management pioneer, to equip you to reinvent the principles, processes and practices of management for our post-modern age. I will argue that management innovation has a unique capacity to create a long-term advantage for your company, and I will outline the steps you must take to first imagine, and then invent, the future of management.

Gary Hamel is not afraid to make bold statements. He spends a big chunk of the first half of the book showing us how bad things currently are and how everything has changed but not the way we currently manage people. Then he gets to some really interesting stuff when he profiles Whole Foods, W.L.Gore and Google, shows how they became management innovators, and points out the benefits they received from this change.

Another part of the book I found truly useful was Hamel's discussion of "learning from the fringe," where, by going out on your own, "you can find amazing feats of 'organizing' and 'managing' that don't involve 'organizations' and managers.'" On the fringe, Hamel says, "you will see the shadow of the future."