Maven Takes On Business Books

Trying to outrun their financial demons, newspapers have been trimming -- or altogether eliminating -- book reviews. As far as investors go, these cutbacks may have limited impact because those dearly departed reviews never looked at books through their eyes anyhow.

How do you look at books through investors' eyes? Well, welcome to a new feature: The Business Press Maven on Books.

Whether an investment advice book, a business leader's biography, a history tome on a particular Wall Street era or even a financial thriller, a book can either add to or detract from an investor's basic understanding of high finance.

At their best, business books can lay the foundation for better investment performance on your part. At their worst, business books can give you all the direction of a salad spinner and set you on a road you don't want to go down.

That's why The Business Press Maven, with a nod and a wink toward Siskel and Ebert, has created a new rating system, specifically for business books. The Business Press Maven will slap a "Help" label on books containing premises or threads of thought that -- you guessed it -- help investors. A "Hindrance" label goes on books that can potentially hurt or mislead investors.

What if a book does neither? Well, if a book can't manage to do anything for busy investors, then guess what? It's a Hindrance.