51 Gorillas
by Paul Miller
The Economist [via Arts & Letters Daily] has some wisdom about business books...
"The formula seems to be: keep the sentences short, the wisdom homespun and the typography aggressive; offer lots of anecdotes, relevant or not; and put an animal in the title'gorillas, fish and purple cows are in vogue this year. Or copy Stephen Covey (author of the hugely successful 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People') and include a number. Here, though, inflation is setting in: this autumn sees the publication of 'The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation' by Ronald Alsop. And Michael Feiner has written a book offering 'the 50 basic laws that will make people want to perform better for you'."