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Bookshelf Clayton Christensen isn't one of those authors who believes the traditional U.S. school system is broken. But he sure thinks it could stand improve- ment—and he expects disruptive technology to do the heavy lifting. In Disrupting Class, Christensen and co-authors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson note that teaching methods have changed very little in the last few decades, despite the fact that a large number of stu- dents do not learn well in lecture-style classrooms. But Chris- tensen and his co- authors believe that, within the next ten years, student-centric online learning meth- ods will revolutionize the way education is delivered, allowing all students to prog- ress at their own speeds and absorb information in ways that make sense to them. They predict that student- centered computer-enabled learning will only take off—as all disruptive technologies do—when it primar- ily competes against the alternative of no learning at all. For instance, schools that don't offer live classes in AP calculus or Mandarin Chinese will set up learning labs for the small number of students who want those classes and have no other access to them. From there, they argue, rapid improvements in technology will turn computer-enabled learn- ing into the educational delivery method of choice. It's utterly fascinating to see the principles of disruption applied to the educa- tional system. Most of the book focuses on K–12 learning, but the lessons apply to any classroom. (McGraw Hill, $32.95) 72 BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 The world of business is an endlessly fascinating panorama of brilliant minds, shady characters, game-changing deals, and shocking reverses. Joe Nocera, a business journalist who has written for The New York Times, Fortune, and Esquire, loves every complex minute of it. In Good Guys & Bad Guys, he gathers together 20 years' worth of columns about some of the larger-than-life characters that have tramped across the American business stage. Steve Jobs, War- ren Buffet, Charles Merrill (and his descendants) all make unforgettable appearances within Nocera's pages. "When you start out on a business story…you really have no idea which of your main characters are going to turn out to be memorable and which are going to be dull as dishwater," Nocera writes. Maybe he just picked the memorable ones; maybe he just has such a fascination with his subjects that he's able to bring them mas- terfully to life. His book feels like the best deal on Wall Street—one that repays the investment with interest. (Portfolio, $25.95) Most working adults struggle to find enough time for all the things that matter to them: their jobs, their families, their social networks, and themselves. In Total Leadership, Stewart D. Friedman—founding director of the Wharton School's Leadership Program and its Work/ Life Integration Project—attempts to help readers find their balance by better aligning those four separate domains of their life. He believes people can be more content and more productive in all phases of their lives if they identify what mat- ters to them, who matters to them, and how they are apportioning their time and energy among the quad- rants of their lives. A man who is a better father, for instance, becomes a better boss; a woman who learns to accept her parents for who they are similarly learns to appreciate her diverse employees. Total Leadership, which is full of exer- cises that make read- ers reflect on their own values, is part self-help book, part motivational tool, but Friedman backs up his premise with some hard numbers. He launched the Total Leadership program at a Fortune 50 company with 35 high- profile managers. The changes they implemented produced a combined $5.8 million in cost savings and $700,000 in new revenue—and pre- sumably improved all the other areas of their lives as well. (Harvard Busi- ness School Press, $25.95) Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui pose an interesting question in the intro- duction to Billion Dollar Lessons: "Why spend $500 mil- lion, and a decade of your life, repeating someone else's mistake when you could learn to avoid it by spending a few hours with a $26 book (less on Amazon)?" Their book delivers the goods. It's a brisk detailing of some of the worst failures in busi- ness, an analysis of the seven most disastrous business strategies, and an examination of the human behaviors that are likely to lead even smart people into making really bad deci- sions. But even though the authors note that "humans are hardwired to come up with bad strategies," CEOs