1. International Business Management Books Free Download
2. Introduction To Business Management Books Free Download
3. Download Business Books For Free

Modern business books all read and sound the same, don't they? Oh, yes - and you can download them for free. Most people are surprised that I used to be a management consultant.

Maybe you're a rising business executive who's getting ready for your summer vacation, and you're looking for something interesting to read.

Maybe you're just heading to Seattle for a sales conference, and you need something to peruse on the plane.

Or maybe you're starting an MBA in the fall. and you're wondering what books to read before you start.

Yes, I know. You feel you ought to read one of the latest business books. Like "The Hidden Power of Maybe" (a title I just made up, but you get the point).

But whenever you think of it, your heart sinks.

International Business Management Books Free Download

Modern business books all read and sound the same, don't they? They all merge into a kind of Gladwellized, Friedmanite blur. Long, tedious anecdotes about what the researcher had for breakfast. Statements of the blindingly obvious made as if they are a stunning revelation. Bullet points and pompous jargon. Badly written stories to illustrate the points.

The idea of cracking open yet another one and wading all the way through it probably fills you with the deepest gloom. You know you'll download it onto your Kindle and then find lots of reasons to avoid reading it.

Here's the good news. You don't have to.

Some of the best books about business, economics, strategy and the like were written a long, long time ago.

By people who knew how to write - and to think.

They are much more entertaining than the stuff being pumped out today.

They have passed the test of time, and then some.

Oh, yes - and you can download them for free.

No kidding. Gratis. Complimentary. As free as a hotel mint.

How's that for lowering your cost of capital?

So forget Thomas Friedman's "The Earth is Flat."

Ignore Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers."

And spare us Michael Porter's "Comparative Advantage."

Here are ten books you should have on your Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iPad - and links to free downloads from the Gutenberg Project.

1. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay. Next time someone tries to persuade you of the "wisdom of crowds," refer back to this. The classic, definitive description of the Dutch Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble... oh yes, and the investment mania for "the company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is."

2. The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money, by P. T. Barnum. Among the first personal finance books, by the nineteenth century huckster and showman. Barnum was famous, or infamous, for "never giving a sucker and even break," but his advice here is much more sophisticated - and worthwhile.

Introduction To Business Management Books Free Download

3. The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope. The Victorian novel that tells the rise and fall of August Melmotte, the high-finance shark and con-artist. Possibly the first Wall Street-style novel.

4. Vanity Fair, William Thackeray. Meet anti-heroine Becky Sharand find out "How to Live Well on Nothing a Year."

5. Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States Office of Strategic Services.  A World War II manual for economic sabotage behind enemy lines. Reads like a description of half the offices you work in. "The Office" long before the TV series.

6. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. The classic guide to power, written by the sixteenth century Florentine and dedicated to the infamous Cesare Borgia. If you haven't read it, your business rivals or classmates will have. In the quest for power, is it better to be feared or loved?

The idea of cracking open yet another one and wading all the way through it probably fills you with the deepest gloom. You know you'll download it onto your Kindle and then find lots of reasons to avoid reading it.

Here's the good news. You don't have to.

Some of the best books about business, economics, strategy and the like were written a long, long time ago.

By people who knew how to write - and to think.

They are much more entertaining than the stuff being pumped out today.

They have passed the test of time, and then some.

Download Business Books For Free

Oh, yes - and you can download them for free.

No kidding. Gratis. Complimentary. As free as a hotel mint.

How's that for lowering your cost of capital?

So forget Thomas Friedman's 'The Earth is Flat.'

Ignore Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers.'

And spare us Michael Porter's 'Comparative Advantage.'

Here are ten books you should have on your Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iPad - and links to free downloads from the Gutenberg Project.

1. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay. Next time someone tries to persuade you of the 'wisdom of crowds,' refer back to this. The classic, definitive description of the Dutch Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble... oh yes, and the investment mania for 'the company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.'

2. The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money, by P. T. Barnum. Among the first personal finance books, by the nineteenth century huckster and showman. Barnum was famous, or infamous, for 'never giving a sucker and even break,' but his advice here is much more sophisticated - and worthwhile.

3. The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope. The Victorian novel that tells the rise and fall of August Melmotte, the high-finance shark and con-artist. Possibly the first Wall Street-style novel.

4. Vanity Fair, William Thackeray. Meet anti-heroine Becky Sharand find out 'How to Live Well on Nothing a Year.'

5. Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States Office of Strategic Services. A World War II manual for economic sabotage behind enemy lines. Reads like a description of half the offices you work in. 'The Office' long before the TV series.

6. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. The classic guide to power, written by the sixteenth century Florentine and dedicated to the infamous Cesare Borgia. If you haven't read it, your business rivals or classmates will have. In the quest for power, is it better to be feared or loved?

Famous posthumous portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

7. The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare. The Bard's guide to economics. It's all here: Diversification, risk, the perils of leverage, the dangers of an ambiguous contract, and proof that, no matter what happens, in the end the lawyers seem to win. Oh yes, and 'all that glisters (sic) is not gold.'

8. The Emperor's New Clothes, by Hans Christian Andersen. Everything you need to know about marketing, vanity, advisers, and crowd psychology in one children's story. Short, sweet, and oh-so-true-to-life.

9. The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry. Essential reading on swindling. Hilarious collection of short stories about two con-artists hustling their way across turn of the century America.

10. The Art of War, by Sunzi. Gordon Gekko's favorite business book. Strategic insights that have survived 1500 years. 'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles... If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'