Books From the Staff at The Economist

There has been an explosion of business books written by journalists in the past few years, and this trend doesn't seem to be stopping. Personally, I like the trend. The authors write for a living, so the books are usually well written, and the topics they touch on are making business literature accessible to a wider audience. In its latest issue, The Economist listed the books members of its staff have written in the past year. Although not all of these are business books (and not all have been published in the U.S. yet) there are some great reads on the list. The list is:

*Martine Franck by Louise Baring *Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future by Iain Carson & Vijay Vaitheeswaran *Guide to Hedge Funds: What They Are, What They Do, Their Risks, Their Advantages by Philip Coggan (not being released until 2008) *Pistols at Dawn: A History of Duelling by Richard Hopton (not yet released in the U.S.) *Young Wisden: A New Fan's Guide to Cricket by Tim de Lisle (not yet released in the U.S.) *Doing Business in China: How to Profit in the World's Fastest Growing Market by Ted Plafker *Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul by Michael Reid *The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver *Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself by Ann Wroe *Holy Land, Unholy War by Anton La Guardia (this is the updated edition of a book first published in 2001, which I believe was published in the U.S. as War Without End)

That's a pretty impressive list of books for one magazine staff to create in a year. I've read Zoom and Doing in Business in China, and would recommend them both. I'm even thinking of getting one or two of the others as Christmas gifts... Christmas gifts I may very well give to myself.