The Economic Naturalist: In search of explanations for everyday enigmas - Robert H. Frank.

Robert is a lecturer every college grad wish he or she had. His thoughts are simple yet provoking and his style is engaging. Imagine not needing to plough through tonnes and tonnes of formal economic mathematics to try understand what exactly is economics.

This book is about questions that we ask or even those that escape us every day about why things happen the way they do. Next time, your children bug you with those 'why' questions, try answering in an economic point-of-view and that would stop it :) But to an adult mind, it is a fantastic tool to be able to see beyond the obvious and really probe the normalities of everyday life. It helps give you a peripheral sense of things and how everything makes perfect economic sense if you understand how the cost-benefit structure works. Even the most difficult question, why people marry some people and not others to a certain extent... difficult, but still hypothetically possible, be answered via economics. Wow. I've always thought matters of the heart are fuzzy, grey and unexplainable. Well, I suppose that magnetic buzz is more of a scientific answer but why we are attracted to certain people - that definitely is in the book.

Go out, get your mind out of the way and explore what the book can offer you. Which is pretty amazing and a lot of fun. Makes your mind topsy-turvy if you're not accustomed to this sort of thinking. Nevertheless, c'mon... let it go once in awhile will ya? Highly recommended :)

The Long Tail, Longer - Chris Anderson.

Chris Anderson is one of my modern day superheroes in business science and economics and this book is a proof of that. Nevermind that he's already the head of Wired ;)

The Long Tail, Longer is essentially an updated version of 'The Long Tail' but a longer version, duh. His acute observation on the dynamics of the internet and how it interferes with consumer behavior is backed by hard data, surely is convincing enough to tell us that human do not behave in a linear way when it comes to consuming data, information and products online. The days of sole pre-selection consumption is over. Don't get me wrong. Pre-selection will always be there because we cannot live online without a physical world but it does bend certain rules of traditional economics and marketing, making it possible to change the game entirely.

This is a must read book for those who love Malcolm Gladwell, those who love Barry Schwartz of 'The Paradox of Choice'. Too many choices in the physical world may not be a good idea as it overwhelms the audience. But online? There is no such thing as 'too many' or 'too much'.