Have you ever flipped through a Men’s Health magazine?  

The book, “Eat This, Not That!” by Men’s Health editor-in-chief David Zinczenko writes about food choices at favorite restaurants, supermarkets and holiday items. The book includes a clever ranking of the country’s 20 worst foods in various categories. Here are some of them: 

Once I’ve read a book I keep it. It becomes a part of me.

Serious leaders who are serious readers build personal libraries dedicated to how to think, not how to compete. It is impossible to put together a serious library on almost any subject for less than several hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps that is why — more than their sex lives or bank accounts — chief executives keep their libraries private.

Few Nike colleagues, for example, ever saw the personal library of the founder, Phil Knight, a room behind his formal office. To enter, one had to remove one’s shoes and bow: the ceilings were low, the space intimate, the degree of reverence demanded for these volumes on Asian history, art and poetry greater than any the self-effacing Mr. Knight, who is no longer chief executive, demanded for himself. “I’m always learning.”

Forget finding the business best-seller list in these libraries. Students of power should take note that C.E.O.’s are starting to collect books on climate change and global warming, not Al Gore’s tomes but books from the 15th century about the weather, Egyptian droughts, even replicas of Sumerian tablets recording extraordinary changes in climate.

Personal libraries have always been a biopsy of power. The empire-loving Elizabeth I surrounded herself with the Roman historians, many of whom she translated, and kept one book under lock and key in her bedroom, in a French translation she alone of her court could read: Machiavelli’s treatise on how to overthrow republics, “The Prince.” Churchill retreated to his library to heal his wounds after being voted out of power in 1945 — and after reading for six years came back to power.

It took Dee Hock, father of the credit card and founder of Visa, a thousand books to find The One. Mr. Hock walked away from business life in 1984 and looked back only from his library’s walls. He built a dream 2,000-square-foot wing for his books in a pink stucco mansion atop a hill in Pescadero, Calif. In his library, Mr. Hock found the book that contained the thoughts of all of them. Visitors can see opened on his library table for daily consulting, Omar Khayyam’s “Rubáiyát,” the Persian poem that warns of the dangers of greatness and the instability of fortune.

“… you should use your wealth to help people”

He wears a $15 watch, flies economy class, and does not own a house or car. For years few guessed that Chuck Feeney was one of the world’s biggest philanthropists, secretly giving away his billionaire fortune. Born in New Jersey during the Depression to a blue-collar Irish-American family, Feeney co-founded Duty Free Shoppers, the world’s largest duty-free retail chain. He liked making money but not having it, so he gave it away for years in strict secrecy. Witty, self-deprecating, frugal, and astute, Feeney was listed by Forbes Magazine in 1988 as the 23d richest American alive and worth $1.3 billion, richer than Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump. He wasn’t. Four years earlier, Feeney had placed most of his money in charitable foundations. Inspired by the great 19th century philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, Feeney helped fund schools, hospitals, universities, medical research, and human rights groups from the United States and Ireland to South Africa and Vietnam.

“I had one idea that never changed in my mind - that you should use your wealth to help people. I try to live a normal life, the way I grew up,” Feeney said. “I set out to work hard, not to get rich.”  Feeney kept his generosity secret for years, saying he did not want to “blow my own horn” or discourage others from giving to the same deserving causes. Only in 1997, when his founding share in his business was sold, did people learn of his generosity. He came to the conclusion that his story should be told to promote giving while living. Now that’s a rich man.

“The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World”

In his new book released today, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said China will be the U.S.’s major competitor by 2030 and the world’s economic fate depends on how much more Chinese leaders embrace markets. “If China continues to press ahead toward free-market capitalism, it will surely propel the world to new levels of prosperity,” wrote Greenspan. He also predicts faster U.S. inflation, slower productivity growth and interest rates of at least 10% that will lead politicians to challenge the Fed’s independence. The success of every nation — big or small — will depend on the extent to which it allows free trade and open markets, Greenspan declared.

“Even as nations as mighty as the United States and China vie for economic supremacy in that new world, they may find themselves partially bending to a force more powerful still: full-blown market globalization,” Greenspan wrote.

Japanese embrace the rules because following them assures there will be no offensive or embarrassing moments.

From the proper degree of a bow (15 to 45 degrees depending on occasion) to how a lady eats a rice cracker (broken by hand into bite size pieces with handkerchief on lap), a complex and subtle etiquette code dictates the proper way to do everything in Japan. Japanese embrace these rules because following them assures there will be no offensive or embarrassing moments.Due to increased social interaction and new technology like cellphones and computers, diversified scenarios give rise to more rules and a big demand for the latest etiquette guides. Last year, long-time former bureaucrat Mariko Bando set out to write a book on how professional women could maintain their emotional dignity in a male-dominated workplace, but her publishers urged her to cover etiquette tips like attire, manners and polite language. She complied, and “Dignity of a Woman” has become a best seller. If only the U.S. could publish a best selling etiquette book….

Manners books traditionally focused on “kan kon sou sai” - literally meaning the rites of coming of age - weddings, funerals and ancestor worship. Now they offer titles like “PTA Dictionary for Getting Along with Others and Writing Notes,” which tells you how to inform the teacher that your child has to sit out gym class or how to wiggle out of committee duties. A letter-writing guide offers tips on composing an apology note to a store where you have shoplifted two packs of gum and some AA batteries, (express deep remorse even if the items are small). Funeral preparation books offer pointers on how to be well-regarded after death. Yep, those books cover everything!

There are plenty of etiquette guides for foreign visitors, but it’s probably most important to try to do as others do instead of flaunting what you think you may know. For instance, showing off your chopstick moves. Not happening! A likely infraction that is a topic of much discussion these days is applying makeup on trains (in public). It’s become a common sight to see young women drawing their eyeliner and brushing on mascara with great dexterity in crowded morning commuter trains. Grooming is a private act that others don’t wish to observe, so take it to the ladies room.

Please Open Your Laptops To Page 383 Paragraph 3 and Read Aloud

Google Inc. will digitize up to 10 million books in university libraries at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, University of Illinois campuses in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign and nine other Midwestern schools as part of its Book Search project. These Midwestern libraries will significantly expand a two-year effort to digitize library books so their contents may be searched online.Adam Smith, a Google executive, said his company will pay the bulk of costs to digitize the printed works, while libraries will cover some of the lesser expenses of preparing books for scanning. Google is working on an arrangement under which searchers can download copyrighted material online after paying a fee to the publisher. Google’s six-year agreement is with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a 12-university consortium formed 50 years ago to facilitate academic collaborations among large Midwestern research universities. Besides the Illinois universities, the group includes other Big Ten schools: Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin-Madison.

Why America’s Healthcare is F*#!ed

Professor Regina Herzlinger has been studying the U.S. health care system for decades, advocating for consumer-driven reform as the best remedy. But the slow pace of change, which she attributes to a fat-cat network of insurers, policymakers, hospitals, and even employers, has her fed up. Her new book, Who Killed Health Care? adopts the emotional language of a manifesto in demanding change to make health care more responsive to customers, affordable to those in need, and a hotbed of innovation and entrepreneurship. Key concepts include:

• Today’s American health care system is set up structurally to reward the major players—hospitals, health insurers, and lawmakers—while short-changing patients and taxpayers. Hospitals want to control the health care delivery system, and they’ve become oligopolists or monopolists in many markets, thus obviating price and quality competition, and they’ve become vertically integrated by hiring physicians and using them. Initially the hospital was a place almost like a hotel or an office while the doctors were the stars. Increasingly, the hospitals have won the power struggle, and the physicians are more or less the blue-collar workers. Whether Democrat or Republican, power is seductive, and politicians are actually practicing medicine … by micromanaging the payment system.
• Health care is not the hotbed of innovation and entrepreneurial activity one might expect from a $2 trillion industry. Risk takers are often beaten down by established interests.
• 300,000 people die every 3 years in hospitals. How? Through uncaring bureaucracies, over-stressed care providers, and poor management. In a hospital, the scope of work is so broad that the possibility of cross-infection is monumental. If you go into a general hospital, there’s no way they can keep those walls and floors clean and free from all bacteria. Another reason is “failure to rescue.” If something happened to you, your respiration got compromised, you couldn’t breathe, and they didn’t get to you in time.

They’re All The Same

When Matthew Paulson was first starting to learn about personal finance, the first book Paulson picked up was George Clason’s The Richest Man in Babylon. It was really a great book that taught fundamental truths about handling money well, such as living on less than you make, saving money, and making your money earn money. Paulson just ate up what he read, because it was such good stuff. The next book he picked up was The Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey. It taught a lot of the same principles that The Richest Man in Babylon did, but offered it in a very practical series of “baby steps” for readers to follow to become financially independent. He continued reading, picking up Rich Dad Poor Dad, then the Millionaire Next Door, and then a few others. By the time he was on the Millionaire Next Door, it became quite clear that they were all offering generally the same advice.

It seems that whenever a new personal finance books comes out, it’s just a rehash of something that we’ve previously read. All the advice in the books have been in numerous other personal finance books before, and offer very little new unique and insightful advice. The same is true for a slue of other personal finance books that come out. If you’ve read one of Robert Kiyosaki’s books, you’ve pretty much read them all. The reason for this is simple, it doesn’t take a chapter to explain simple principles such as “You should pay off debt” and “live on less than you make.” The principles are certainly fundamental, but don’t necessarily translate well into 200+ page books. Usually they offer all of the good advice they have to offer in their first book, and after that, they are more than likely just looking for money.

The moral of this story is that if you’ve already read a few good personal finance books, be sure to read some reviews of the book before going and picking it up. You can’t blame an author for trying to make money, but we need to be a bit more selective in our personal finance reading.

Real estate investor and author Kim Kiyosaki reveals what you can do to take control of your financial future.

Kim Kiyosaki, author of Rich Woman: A Book on Investing for Women, began her career as a real estate investor in 1989 after launching her first business with her husband, Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the bestselling Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. Today, Kim controls millions of dollars of investment property and teaches women how to achieve financial freedom through investing and taking control of their financial futures. Entrepreneur Magazine spoke with her to get her insight and advice on the importance of taking charge of your money–and your life.

Why do you think that so many women are still afraid to take business risks?

Kim Kiyosaki: I think part of it is that so many of us haven’t been educated about investing and haven’t really been expected to be the ones handling the money. What I’ve found over the years is that the way I grow and the way I learn is by placing myself in situations where I have to face something I’m not familiar with or to break through a fear.

Most women know how risky it is to depend on a man for financial support, yet millions of women continue to hope that their husbands will take care of them. What was the turning point that transformed you into the financial risk taker you are today?

I think so many of us women still have this idea that Prince Charming is going to take care of us. With one out of two marriages ending in divorce nowadays, that’s just not the case any more.

A challenge for women entrepreneurs is balancing work and family. What advice do you have for women who don’t have the time to invest in a business venture?

I think that every woman has their own business called, “Managing and Growing Your Money.” And it has to be looked at as a business, not just a thing to do to pay the bills. A lot of women business owners say, “I’ve got a business, and it’s doing well, so why do I need to invest?” I would bet you that every businesswoman out there has said to herself at some point, “I’d love to shut it down. I’d love to not have to go to work today.” Eventually, you’re going to get tired. You’re going to want to take a break. By creating that income stream, you have a choice.

Every woman who seeks financial freedom through starting a business or buying a piece of real estate has to start somewhere. What’s the first step that you’d advise a woman to take?

Number one, whether it’s business or investing, is education. If you’re starting a business, get some education about the business you want to start. Talk to mentors, talk to people who are doing what you want to be doing. Read up on it, attend seminars, go to speaking events. There are some great organizations that are supportive of women in business. If you can hook up with them, fantastic! Don’t hang around with negative people, people who say it’s never going to work, that you’re crazy, that it’s too risky. Get those people out of your life.