WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY A Political History of the American Rich
By Kevin Phillips Broadway Books -- 473pp -- $29.95

A GHOST'S MEMOIR The Making of Alfred P. Sloan's My Years with General Motors
By John McDonald MIT Press -- 202pp -- $24.95

COMPLICATIONS
A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
By Atul Gawande
Metropolitan Books -- 269pp -- $24

LIVING IT UP
Our Love Affair With Luxury
By James B. Twitchell
Columbia University -- 309pp -- $27.95

WHAT MANAGEMENT IS How It Works and Why It's Everyone's Business
By Joan Magretta with Nan Stone Free Press -- 244pp -- $25

CONFESSIONS OF A STREET ADDICT
By James J. Cramer
Simon & Schuster -- 339pp -- $26

EMBATTLED DREAMS California in War and Peace, 1940-1950
By Kevin Starr Oxford University Press -- 386pp -- $37.50

THE FISH'S EYE
Essays About Angling and the Outdoors
By Ian Frazier
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 164pp, $20

COMIC WARS
How Two Tycoons Battled Over
the Marvel Comics Empire--And Both Lost
By Dan Raviv
Broadway Books, 305pp, $24.95

The Years of Lyndon Johnson
MASTER OF THE SENATE
By Robert A. Caro
Knopf, 1,167pp, $35

CREATING A LIFE Professional Women and the Quest for Children
By Sylvia Ann Hewlett Talk Miramax 334pp $22

F'D COMPANIES Spectacular Dot-Com Flameouts
By Philip J. Kaplan Simon & Schuster -- 191pp -- $18

BASEBALL A Literary Anthology Ed. by Nicholas Dawidoff Library of America -- 721pp -- $35

MARTHA INC. The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
By Christopher Byron Wiley -- 405pp -- $27.95

AMBLING INTO HISTORY The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush
By Frank Bruni HarperCollins -- 278pp -- $23.95

ALL-AMERICAN ADS OF THE '40s
ALL-AMERICAN ADS OF THE '50s
By Jim Heimann
Taschen -- 764pp and 928pp -- $40

GEORGE SOROS ON GLOBALIZATION
By George Soros
Public Affairs -- 191pp -- $20

THE PARADOX OF AMERICAN POWER
Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone
By Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Oxford University -- 222pp -- $26

HARVARD DESIGN SCHOOL GUIDE TO SHOPPING Project on the City 2 Edited by Chuihua Judy Chung, Jeffrey Inaba, Rem Koolhaas, Sze Tsung Leong Taschen -- 800pp -- $50

VIRTUALLY JEWISH Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe
By Ruth Ellen Gruber University of California -- 304pp -- $35

THE MOUSEDRIVER CHRONICLES The True-Life Adventures of Two First-Time Entrepreneurs
By John Lusk and Kyle Harrison Perseus -- 257pp -- $24

THE NATURAL The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton
By Joe Klein Doubleday 230pp -- $22.95

JIHAD The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia
By Ahmed Rashid Yale University -- 281pp -- $24

CRASHING THE PARTY How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President
By Ralph Nader St. Martin's 383pp -- $24.95

EXPLODING The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group
By Stan Cornyn with Paul Scanlon HarperCollins 470pp -- $39.95

PILOTING PALM The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring, and the Birth of the Billion-Dollar Handheld Industry
By Andrea Butter and David Pogue Wiley -- 353pp -- $27.95

SOROS The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire
By Michael T. Kaufman Knopf -- 344pp $27.50

THE RULE OF THREE Surviving and Thriving in Competitive Markets
By Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia Free Press -- 277pp -- $28

YELLOW
Race in America Beyond Black and White
By Frank H. Wu
Basic Books -- 397pp -- $26

DOT.CON The Greatest Story Ever Sold
By John Cassidy HarperCollins -- 372pp -- $25.95

CHINA AND THE WTO Changing China, Changing World Trade
By Supachai Panitchpakdi and Mark L. Clifford Wiley -- 251pp -- $21.95

TOBACCO A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization
By Iain Gately Grove Press -- 403pp -- $25

disappeared. Instead, there's a cornucopia of self-improvement titles, available to help readers during these tougher times. And there's a reassertion of more traditional subject matter, including personal-finance, investing, and management how-tos, economics-- and even an old-fashioned exposé.

HARDCOVER BUSINESS BOOKS


1. WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? Spencer Johnson (Putnam -- $19.95)

THE AGENT
Personalities, Politics, and Publishing
By Arthur Klebanoff
Texere -- 247pp -- $27.95

PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS
A Study of Decline
By Richard A. Posner
Harvard -- 408pp -- $29.95

A CONVENIENT SPY Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage
By Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman Simon & Schuster 384pp -- $26

INTEGRATING CHINA INTO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
By Nicholas R. Lardy Brookings -- 244pp -- $19.95

SALT A World History
By Mark Kurlansky Walker -- 484pp -- $28

WHAT WENT WRONG? Western Impact & Middle Eastern Response
By Bernard Lewis Oxford -- 180pp -- $23

HENRY FORD AND THE JEWS
The Mass Production of Hate
By Neil Baldwin
PublicAffairs -- 416pp -- $27.50

DOT.BOMB
My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath
By J.David Kuo
Little, Brown -- 314pp -- $25.95

CROSSING OVER
A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail
By Rubén Martínez
Metropolitan Books -- 330pp -- $26

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946
By Robert Skidelsky Viking 580pp $34.95

BAD ELEMENTS Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing
By Ian Buruma Random House -- 367pp -- $27.95

GIANTS OF ENTERPRISE
Seven Business Innovators
and the Empires They Built
By Richard S. Tedlow
HarperBusiness -- 512pp -- $30

BARREN LANDS An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic
By Kevin Krajick Times Books -- 442pp -- $26

THE FUTURE OF IDEAS
The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
By Lawrence Lessig
Random House -- 352pp -- $30

SWIMMING ACROSS A Memoir
By Andrew S. Grove Warner Books -- 290pp -- $26.95

THEODORE REX
By Edmund Morris Random House -- 772pp -- $35