Alper (founder, Noah's Bagels), with journalist Fields-Meyer, offers a quick-reading business memoir with both personal and spiritual advice on how to be a "business mensch" (an "honorable, decent person"). He suggests having a little chutzpah, treating both employees and customers right, and taking time off when necessary. Fans of entrepreneurial guides with some personal philosophy (e.g., Michael Gates Gill's How Starbucks Saved My Life) might enjoy this one as well.

Chapman (CEO, Empower Public Relations) offers a treatise on authentic communication. Convinced that office gossip leads to lower productivity, he proposes implementing a "no-gossip zone" (complete with formal agreements not to gossip and severe consequences for those employees who continue to engage in it). Chapman insists that the program results in more honest collaboration. Still, as this slim book is largely taken up with repeating basic ideas, it might have been better as an article. Not recommended.

Reputation risk management consultant Firestein (president, Global Strategic Communications) offers a down-to-earth guide for executives to shape their organizations' reputations. Rather than relying on bullet points and quick fixes, Firestein gives appropriate examples of companies with good and bad reputations, then focuses on his seven strategies of reputation leadership (e.g., building a reputation from the inside out). This thoughtful treatise would be a good addition to any management collection.

Goffee and Jones (London Business Sch.; Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?) outline ways to get the most from your "clever" employees—those who "make a disproportionate contribution" to the organization. Although the book is well organized, describing, e.g., how "clevers" ask difficult questions and are unimpressed by corporate hierarchies, and although it offers suggestions for leading these "clevers," readers may wonder how many "clevers" there truly are, thus just how applicable this title is. An optional choice.

Building on the fable they first told in The One Minute Millionaire, Hansen and Allen belabor their point that anyone can make "fast money." Just envision your goals, make friends with your Inner Winner, and assemble a Dream Team to provide support. Sound a bit vague? It is. A continuing fable is told on the right-side pages and "financial recipes" are on the left, which is distracting. And it's too long for what is essentially a glorified Chicken Soup for the Soul, the series that Hansen coauthors.

Both of these titles explore the interconnected machinations of the business and personal worlds. Sull (management, London Business Sch.) offers the big picture, suggesting that turbulence creates new and often global opportunities, which individuals must be able to respond to proactively; however, his dependence on business case studies is hardly innovative. On the other hand, Joel (president, Twist Image), once referred to as a "rock star of digital marketing," offers more concrete suggestions for participating in an ever more connected world; of particular interest are his thoughts on transforming virtual relationships into face-to-face ones and dealing with the media.

Branding expert and founder of SelfBrand LLC, Kaputa (U R a Brand!: How Smart People Brand Themselves for Business Success) examines how women can brand themselves for success in the workplace, suggesting that women must first stop acting like men in order to get ahead. Other suggestions include honing your intuition, making the most of a more female collaborative style, and even creating a unique fashion and personal style to draw attention to you as a brand, which may rub some readers the wrong way. Still, those seeking to diversify their business titles may want to consider it.

These titles both focus on getting and keeping customers. Women Want More makes the case that women will control ever greater amounts of consumer spending, and should be wooed accordingly with services that both save their time and meet their unique needs. The book is based on a study of 12,000 women conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (for which the authors work), and the most helpful findings reveal how many women are currently dissatisfied with the financial, health care, banking, and technological services that they receive. Suttle and Vest's narrative is much more a business how-to on keeping all clients happy by keeping your business's promises, exceeding expectations, and personalizing services. Neither book is groundbreaking, although the former offers a few unique insights, but both are serviceably written and should be considered for those seeking to freshen up their customer service collections.

These two books are very different in format—Solin (The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read) offers short chapters on a variety of retirement subjects, each concluding with a pithy summarization, while Jason (principal, Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers, Inc.) gives a more explanatory dissertation. But both are clearly written and easy to understand, tackling such topics as stocks, bonds, annuities, pensions, and cash withdrawal strategies (although Solin's book offers a handy section on care costs, Jason's does not). Jason's will be better for readers not as familiar with basic finance concepts, while Solin's may appeal to a more financially literate crowd.

Timmons (founder, Sterling Investment Management) offers a book that is borderline gimmicky in its focus but that does address, largely through personal narratives, ways to understand and talk about money with one's significant other. Although it might have been nice to see more concrete examples and suggestions, this could be a good choice for readers who should know about the topic but who don't normally read finance titles.

Waldfogel (business & public policy, Wharton Sch., Univ. of Pennsylvania; The Tyranny of the Market) assesses holiday gift giving through the lens of economic tenets such as opportunity costs and deadweight loss. The result is a short but engaging manifesto on the inefficiency of the tradition, concluding with several solutions to increase satisfaction for both givers and receivers. Although his own suggestions mandate that you not buy this book for someone who wanted something else, fans of Freakonomics and The Economic Naturalist may love it.