More book reviews:

• Bionomics: Economy as Ecosystem , by Michael Rothschild. I found this to be full of errors and kind of lame. The book compares economic entities, such as corporations, to living creatures. It's pretty much a standard apologia for right wing politics. Typical goof: he says that capitalism is the natural economy that you get when there isn't something else imposed by government. Not so - you are far more likely to get feudalism. Capitalism is pretty rare and requires definite help from the government, to enforce contracts, provide money and credit, and treat citizens as equals.
• Ulysses S. Grant, by Brooks D. Simpson. An excellent book about the rise of Grant from obscurity to general-in-chief of the Union armies. You would learn more about project management from this book than from all those trendy business and computer tomes in the best seller lists.
• Gig, by the staff of the notoriously slow-loading website Word.com. A fascinating book, frankly modeled on Studs Terkel's 1972 classic Working. People are interviewed about their jobs: temp, CEO, lawn maintenance man, nurse, escort, bookie, etc. etc. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of our society, the kind you don't get from television.