(FORTUNE Magazine) – The cult of Kamen Code Name Ginger: The Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World

by Steve Kemper (Harvard Business School Press)

Though ostensibly a book about the birth of the most hyped invention of the past decade--the Segway Human Transporter--this is really a book about Dean Kamen. Good thing too. Because while the public is still deliberating on whether this self-balancing, two-wheeled electric vehicle is anything more than an expensive toy for the Sharper Image set (Kamen's company will say only that "several thousand" have been sold), the verdict is already in on the man who created it. Kamen is a visionary thinker, a brilliant engineer, an audacious salesman, and a profoundly vain man who wears his outsized hubris on his outdated denim sleeve. "I have no doubt at all that [Segway] will revolutionize the world," Kamen declares at one point. "The impact of this in the 21st century will be just like what Henry Ford did at the beginning of the 20th century."

Despite Kamen's fervent desire to keep Segway (code-named Ginger) top secret, he invited Kemper to document his "historic" invention. (Never mind that Segway stands to replace something most of us do pretty well--you know, walking.) It's captivating to watch Kamen unleash his Thomas Edison--meets--P.T. Barnum shtick on the likes of investors Jeff Bezos, John Doerr, and Steve Jobs. But Ginger ends abruptly: When a copy of Kemper's book proposal leaked to the media, Kamen excommunicated his diarist. To his credit, Kemper retains a sense of balance, portraying Kamen as a fascinating yet flawed idealist who may or may not have invented a product that will change the world. --John Godfrey

Bombs away Why Smart Executives Fail

by Sydney Finkelstein (Portfolio)

How do leaders who have been successful for years suddenly start getting everything wrong? Finkelstein, a professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, undertook a six-year study to find the causes of spectacular business failures. With richly detailed storytelling and careful analysis, he takes us deep inside gargantuan mistakes wrought by leaders of such companies as Wang Labs, Motorola, Mattel, Quaker, Enron, and WorldCom. For instance, Iridium--Motorola's multibillion-dollar venture to build earth-orbiting satellites--flopped because "techtosterone"-driven execs failed to see how fast terrestrial cellular service was spreading. From such fiascos Finkelstein draws valuable lessons on how to avoid boneheaded corporate thinking--and how shareholders can spot disasters in the making. --Ellen Florian

Thinking big The Maverick and His Machine

by Kevin Maney (Wiley)

Thomas Watson Sr.'s first really public achievement was a conviction (overturned) and jail sentence (never served) for running a dirty-tricks operation at National Cash Register. He paid himself better than any other chief executive in the country. He kowtowed to Hitler. He crippled his own company's machines so that he could later make customers trade up to faster, better, pricier models. And he built IBM into the most important technology company of the century. For this book, USA Today writer Maney was given access to a seldom seen trove of papers accumulated by Watson, who ran IBM from 1915 to 1952. The Maverick makes the CEO's achievement--pressing on with the business of growth even through war and the Depression--stand out clearly, and deftly humanizes the man without ever sugarcoating or apologizing for him. --Mark Gimein