In Pursuit of Elegance author Matthew May reads around 200 books a year. That means he's read approximately 2000 books since the year 2000. Of those, he has picked five that he feels defined the last decade, writing "these 'big idea' books stand out because not only did they help us better understand the world, they gave us a new lens through which to view it.

It's an admittedly worn device to use the alphabet to organize one's thoughts, but when reflecting over the past decade and trying to distill the most notable events and objects that affected our company and also the publishing industry and business sector into a brief blog post, I found such a device to be quite helpful. As Jack put it when we initially discussed writing a decade-in-review post, not only is it like opening a can of worms, it seems like whenever one harkens back to the Millenium, one can't help but get sidetracked into thoughts about 9/11. But of course there were many more ups and downs that we've all been a victim and/or a participant in, and this list is an attempt to do that chaos a little bit of justice.

I posted my interview with Donna Fenn over on the Podcasts Blog this afternoon. I also asked Donna what her favorite business books were. Here is the list she whipped up for me along with a thought on each.

I want to let everybody know that James Surowiecki will be joining us on Thursday. He will be talking about his new book The Wisdom of Crowds. I have been reading it and I can't help making comparisons to The Tipping Point.

I found a gem locked away in my email this morning. Our friend Kevin Carroll sent me a list of the books he gives out at his seminars. It is a great list.