And, in case you're interested, the BEST books I've recently read:

NON-FICTION:

-Robert Bryce, 2002.

  Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron.

Perseus Books.

--How "Enronized" is the power structure in our times? - Is the ENRON story just another example of "business as usual"? - Should ethics be important in business and government? - How could one of the world's oldest and most respected accounting & auditing firms, Arthur Anderson & Co., totally collapse in a matter of weeks due to its involvement with ENRON? - An interesting and easily readable account of the ENRON story! - It's a great book!

[And, a thought to keep you up awake at night, while you're worrying about the high prices you're paying for gasoline and electricity: ENRON successfully manipulated the energy markets in California in 2000-2001, making consumers pay through the nose just so that the price of ENRON stock would go up (Would that be an abuse of power? What do YOU think?) - The top ENRON executives may be dead, indicted, or in jail now - But, there were many other employees and executives at ENRON and Arthur Anderson at that time - Which energy and energy-related trading companies would they be working for now? Would these employees and executives have incentives to be applying again the tricks that they learned at ENRON...?  It can be very hard to break the addiction of being like Cain!]

[And, are you an AUTO company employee, executive, or stockholder? These people may be taking away YOUR job, YOUR money, and YOUR life savings! And you're just going to wait and do NOTHING?? - Remember, ENRON also had nice, logical, "market-forces" explanations for all the energy price increases in California back in 2001!]

-Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, 1999.

First, Break All the Rules. Simon & Schuster.

The Gallup Poll organization set out to discover what it takes to make GREAT managers, and they interviewed 80,000 managers - this book presents what they discovered.

If you manage people, or if you work under a manager, this is a book you simply MUST read -

-Reuben Abel, 1976.

Man Is The Measure: A Cordial Invitation to the Central Problems of Philosophy. Simon & Schuster.

A really good general introduction to philosophy! - Entertaining and informative - The title is from a quotation from the Greek philosopher Protagoras, but the intended meaning is clearly, "Humankind is [naturally] the measure of all things!"

FICTION:

-Donald Kingsbury, 2001.
Psychohistorical Crisis, St. Martin's Press.
[An authentic masterpiece! Kingsbury has outdone himself in writing a sequel that is better than Asimov's original 1950s Foundation trilogy! Absolutely delicious reading! No real SF fan should miss this book!]

-Vernor Vinge, 1999.

A Deepness in the Sky, Tom Doherty Associates.

This is simply the BEST science-fiction book in the last 25 years.

It has the superb quality and depth of Frank Herbert's 1965 Dune, and Robert A. Heinlein's 1974 Time Enough for Love.

(If you like SF and haven't yet read Vernor Vinge's novels and stories, including Marooned in Realtime (1986), The Peace War (1984), A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), and True Names (1981) - I envy you - you're in for some real good reading!).

-Iain M. Banks, 2001.
 Look to Windward.  Pocket Books.
[The story: Enemies of humanity have a religious grudge and send a suicide bomber to destroy a major human population center - Like Banks' other future Culture novels, The Player of Games (1989), Excession (1996), and Consider Phlebas (1987), an absolutely thrilling read!]