Books about Fortune from Amazon.com

How to speed up business processes, improve quality, and cut costs in any industry

In factories around the world, Toyota consistently makes the highest-quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer, while using fewer man-hours, less on-hand inventory, and half the floor space of its competitors. The Toyota Way is the first book for a general audience that explains the management principles and business philosophy behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability.

Complete with profiles of organizations that have successfully adopted Toyota's principles, this book shows managers in every industry how to improve business processes by:

• Eliminating wasted time and resources
• Building quality into workplace systems
• Finding low-cost but reliable alternatives to expensive new technology
• Producing in small quantities
• Turning every employee into a qualitycontrol inspector

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Price: $15.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The much-loved comic thriller by the author of the Edgar Award–winning The Butcher’s Boy is now, by popular demand, back in print, featuring a new Introduction by bestselling author Carl Hiaasen.

When Leroy “Chinese” Gordon breaks into a professor’s lab at the University of Los Angeles, he’s after some pharmaceutical cocaine, worth plenty of money. Instead, he finds the papers the professor has compiled for the CIA, which include a blueprint for throwing a large city into chaos. But how is the CIA to be persuaded to pay a suitable ransom, unless of course someone actually uses the plan to throw a large city into chaos—Los Angeles, for instance? Assigned to cope with the crisis and restore the peace, veteran agent Ben Porterfield steps onto the scene to remind us that the CIA’s middle name is, after all, Intelligence. Enlivening the mix are Gordon’s beautiful girlfriend, Margaret, his temperamental cat, Dr. Henry Metzger, and Metzger’s friend, an enormous half-wild dog with huge teeth..
Price: $7.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Want to learn how to speak the language of critters, large and small? Easy-to-read and understand, Ted Andrews's bestselling Animal Speak shows readers how to identify his or her animal totem and learn how to invoke its energy and use it for personal growth and inner discovery Nature lovers will love this insightful compendium, chock-full of touching stories about animals, natural history, and animal folklore. Readers will also learn magical animal rites and how to read omens. Animal Speak includes a dictionary of bird, animal, reptile, and insect totems, which describe each creature's meaning. For example, if a person's totem is dragonfly, he or she was most likely excessively emotional and passionate in early years, learning with age to balance it with mental clarity and control. If a dragonfly suddenly shows up in your life, it means you may need to gain a new perspective or make a change. --P. Randall Cohan.
Price: $9.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In 1866, tragedy strikes at the  exclusive Windfield School. A young student drowns  in a mysterious accident involving a small circle  of boys. The drowning and its aftermath initiates a  spiraling circle of treachery that will span three  decades and entwine many loves... From the  exclusive men's club and brothels that cater to every  dark desire of London's upper classes to the dazzling  ballrooms and mahogany-paneled suites of the  manipulators of the world's wealth, Ken Follett  conjures up a stunning array of contrasts. This  breathtaking novel portrays a family splintered by lust,  bound by a shared legacy... men and women swept  toward a perilous climax where greed, fed by the  shocking truth of a boy's death, must be stopped, or  not just one man's dreams, but those of a nation,  will die....
Price: $3.70 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Do you want to date incredibly hot honeys?



Do you envy your friends who have all the luck with women, while you have little or none?



Have you ever felt like you are not successful with women and you just accept that?



Do you sometimes wonder whether a woman really likes you or not?



Do you sometimes feel insecure and that bothers you to approach attractive women?



Do you feel nervous around sexy women?



Have you ever dreamt to have sex with a hot lady without spending much on dating or courting?



Do you often ask the question "What women actually want"?



Do you want to know how to flirt successfully and never be rejected from stunning women?



Do you want to become that masculine man that all women want to date with?



Do you want to know how to influence hot women so that they can't wait for a second date with you?



Do you want to know how to be irresistible for gorgeous women even if you are not rich or don't look like a model?



Have you ever wanted to know how to make her completely in love with you?



Do you want to know how to seduce her so that you are her only sexual fantasy?



Have you ever wanted to know how to keep the flame in her eyes forever?



Every man wants to be an object of desire and admiration. This is a normal feature of male nature, unfortunately not always men manage to be exactly what they want. Not until the unique male manual appears. The purpose of "The Exclusive Layguide" is to teach you the little secrets that make from you a great tempter. If you always wanted to know how to seduce incredibly hot women and of course the most important thing - how to make every woman fall in love with you- so this is the book for you!.
Price: $22.46 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $18.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In this autobiography, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson says one of his prime business criteria is "fun." Fun made Branson a billionaire, and few business memoirs are one-billionth as fun as Branson's, nor as niftily written. Not only does it relate his side of near-death corporate experiences, it tells how the chairman literally cheated death by gun, shipwreck, and balloon crash.

Branson's empire--now encompassing interests in an airline, pop music, soda pop, e-commerce, and financial services--began when the dyslexic 16-year-old dropped out of school in 1968 to found the British magazine Student. His headmaster said, "I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire." Briefly imprisoned for dodging customs selling records, Branson got his first million by releasing Tubular Bells, a maverick recording all the stuffy executives rejected. (1998's Tubular Bells III puts the series' sales over 20 million.)

Despite wild tales of Branson's wife-swapping and Keith Richards fleeing naked from Branson's studio at gunpoint with another man's woman, the most shocking parts of the memoir concern British Airways' James Bond-like "dirty tricks" campaign against Virgin Atlantic, resulting in the biggest award for damages in English history.

Though it's filled with famous names, witty quotes, and pulse-pounding accounts of lunatic balloon adventures, it is as a business thriller that the book really scores. His instinctive bet-the-ranch tactics could cost him all, or earn another billion. Either way, Branson will likely remain the most entertaining entrepreneur in Europe. --Tim Appelo.
Price: $8.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The world's most exciting, fastest-growing new market? It's where you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world's billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial capabilities and buying power. You can learn how to serve them and help millions of the world's poorest people escape poverty.

It is being done-profitably. Whether you're a business leader or an anti-poverty activist, business guru Prahalad shows why you can't afford to ignore "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) markets.

In the book and accompanying CD videos, Prahalad presents...

Why what you know about BOP markets is wrong A world of surprises-from spending patterns to distribution and marketing

Unlocking the "poverty penalty"

The most enduring contributions your company can make Delivering dignity, empowerment, and choice-not just products

Corporations and BOP entrepreneurs Profiting together from an inclusive new capitalism

"C. K. Prahalad argues that companies must revolutionize how they dobusiness in developing countries if both sides of that economic equation areto prosper. Drawing on a wealth of case studies, his compelling new bookoffers an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability." Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect,Microsoft

"The Bottom of the Pyramid belongs at the top of the reading list forbusiness people, academics, and experts pursuing the elusive goal ofsustainable growth in the developing world. C. K. Prahalad writes withuncommon insight about consumer needs in poor societies andopportunities for the private sector to serve important public purposes whileenhancing its own bottom line. If you are looking for fresh thinking aboutemerging markets, your search is ended. This is the book for you." Madeleine K. Albright, Former U.S. Secretary of State

"Prahalad challenges readers to re-evaluate their pre-conceived notionsabout the commercial opportunities in serving the relatively poor nations ofthe world. The Bottom of the Pyramid highlights the way to commercialsuccess and societal improvement--but only if the developed worldreconceives the way it delivers products and services to the developingworld." Christopher Rodrigues, CEO, Visa International

"An important and insightful work showing persuasively how the privatesector can be put at the center of development, not just as a rhetoricalflourish but as a real engine of jobs and services for the poor." Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme.
Price: $9.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

It seems like mutual good luck for Abigail Taylor and Dara MacLeod when they meet at St. Andrews University and, despite their differences, become fast friends. Years later they remain an unlikely pair. Abigail, an actress who confidently uses her charms both on- and offstage, believes herself immune to love. Dara, a counselor, is convinced that everyone is inescapably marked by childhood; she throws herself into romantic relationships with frightening intensity. Yet now each seems to have found "true love"—another stroke of luck?—Abigail with her academic boyfriend, Sean, and Dara with a tall, dark violinist named Edward, who literally falls at her feet. But soon after Dara moves into Abigail's downstairs apartment, trouble threatens both relationships, and their friendship.

For Abigail it comes in the form of an anonymous letter to Sean claiming that she's been unfaithful; for Dara, a reconciliation with her distant father, Cameron, who left the family when Dara was ten, reawakens complicated feelings. Through four ingeniously interlocking narratives—Sean's, Cameron's, Dara's, and Abigail's—we gradually understand how these characters' lives are shaped by both chance and determination. Whatever the source, there is no mistaking the tragedy that strikes the house on Fortune Street.

"Everyone," claims Abigail, "has a book or a writer who's the key to their life." As this statement reverberates through each of the narratives, Margot Livesey skillfully reveals how luck—good and bad—plays a vital role in our lives, and how the search for truth can prove a dangerous undertaking. Written with her characteristic elegance and wit, The House on Fortune Street offers a surprisingly provocative detective story of the heart.

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Price: $14.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]