If there is one question I am consistently asked every summer, it is this: What’s the best business book that I should be reading?
It’s an oddly challenging question given the number of terrific books that have been written over the years about the world of business and finance. Invariably, I punt on the question and blurt out a couple of obvious classics.
This year, however, a reader, an M.B.A. student, asked the question slightly differently. The reader, who approached me on the subway with a copy of “Barbarians at the Gate” in hand, asked, “If you wanted to get smart about business by reading your way through the summer, what would your master reading list look like?”