Business Books

Since the U.S. has lost 8.4 million jobs in the Great Recession, this hopeful guide to life after the ax would seem to have a ready market. The authors offer valuable tips for keeping yourself together (exercise, sleep, a sound diet, socializing and staying active) and plotting your future after a job loss.

While Martini and Reed can sound Pollyannaish, given the bleak job market ("If you were unhappy or in a job that wasn't right, your boss did you a favor"), this spirited book should help the immobilized find some footing.

THE BOTTOM LINE: You are not alone!

Roger Lowenstein on former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan: "Greenspan's was a Rousseauean vision of markets as untainted social organisms--evolved, as it were, from a state of nature. (It overlooked the obvious point that markets were also human constructs--made by men.)"