Fly on WallStreet

Hi, my name is Jeremy and I can't spell the word mabye.

Fly for President, 2008

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In my determined (but also hopeless and exceedingly pitiful) quest to develop my own "calculator-brain," I've finished another one of "The Fly's" book recommendations. As has become my weekly tradition, I harassed Fly for a recommendation, read it, and finally wrote a dumb article all about it (all in between school and work). The reason: I figure that (with any luck) I'll have eventually read enough Fly Recommendations to advance persuasive and well-reasoned arguments on the Yahoo! message boards-- in turn gaining the respect of Internet titans such as "MadMoneyChick69" and "g0rd3/\/ g3kko".

This week's book was "The Book of Business Wisdom" by Peter Krass. Basically, it's a collection of "classic writings by the legends of commerce and industry." The book has pieces from Carnegie, Edison, Walton, Ford, Rockefeller, Icahn, and probably about thirty other businessmen. Each legend has his or her own short section, composed of a brief, one-page introduction by Krass, followed by a few pages of their own writing.

The selections by Krass were to-the-point, apropos, and engaging. Given that so many different businessmen were covered in short articles, the book does an excellent job of giving you a taste of several different personalities-- which is convenient for quickly identifying names that you would like to research further. The fact that many diverse businesses and businesspeople were represented also plays to this. In fact, I found the few businesswomen that were featured to be among the most interesting.

In short, I really liked this book and I would definitely recommend it to all of you-- particularly if you haven't already had a great deal of exposure to these kinds of collections. And even if you're already well-versed in your Peter Lynch, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Ford, this book still offers writings from lesser-known names that were also quite interesting. Unfamiliar names such as Marvin Bower and Crawford Greenewalt certainly held their own. Again, it really was a good book.

Later on today, I intend to post several of the quotes that I liked most from the book. But right now I gotta run-- I'm committed to a big Axis and Allies game this afternoon (yeah, I know I'm lame).