The Firm by Duff McDonald  
Price: Rs 720

If you want to be taken seriously, you hire McKinsey & Company. Founded in 1926, its consultants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological change to the nation’s best organizations; they remapped the power structure within the White House; they even revolutionized business schools. McDonald shows just how, in becoming an indispensable part of decision making at the highest levels, McKinsey has done nothing less than set the course of American capitalism. But he also answers the question that’s on the mind of anyone who has ever heard the word McKinsey: Are they worth it? After all, just as McKinsey can be shown to have helped invent most of the tools of modern management, the company was also involved with a number of striking failures. Its consultants were on the scene when General Motors drove itself into the ground, and they were K-Mart’s advisers when the retailer tumbled into disarray.

The Start-up of You by Ried Hoffman Price: Rs 798
The career escalator is jammed at every level. Unemployment rates are sky-high. Creative disruption is shaking every industry. Global competition for jobs is fierce. The employer-employee pact is over and traditional job security is a thing of the past. Here, LinkedIn cofounder and chairman Reid Hoffman and author Ben Casnocha show how to accelerate your career in today’s competitive world. The key is to manage your career as if it were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you. Why? Start-ups – and the entrepreneurs who run them – are nimble. They invest in themselves. They build their professional networks. They take intelligent risks. They make uncertainty and volatility work to their advantage. These are the very same skills professionals need to get ahead today. This book isn’t about cover letters or resumes. Instead, you will learn the best practices of Silicon Valley start-ups, and how to apply these entrepreneurial strategies to your career.

The Shanghai Factor by Charles McCarry
Price: Rs 560
A young American spy is sent to Shanghai to absorb the culture and language for a shadowy U.S. agency known only as HQ. While there, he meets a sultry and mysterious woman named Mei, leading to a torrid love affair. Soon the enigmatic head of HQ gives the spy a task that forces him to risk everything: go undercover as the American representative for a massive Chinese conglomerate and learn the secrets of the powerful CEO, who HQ believes to be involved with the nearly uncrackable Chinese Intelligence Agency, Guoanbu. But the spy finds out that HQ isn’t the only one tracking his every move—and that his tryst with Mei might have exposed more than just his heart. As the line between friend and foe blurs, the spy finds himself drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game between HQ and Guoanbu that might not only end his life but upend the very balance of power between East and West.

 
• the firm
 
• the start-up of you
 
• the shanghai factor