A Page Turner

• Do you try to achieve revolutionary breakthroughs, brainstorm for ideas and work unceasingly but never reach your objective? In Strategic Intuition (Columbia University Press, $27.95), Columbia business school professor William Duggan suggests you may be going about it the wrong way. With examples ranging from Napoleon to Google, Duggan argues that breakthroughs happen when you study past breakthroughs, take opportunities that fit your abilities and don't waste effort pursuing unreachable goals.
• Low costs allow Southwest Airlines to make money while other airlines lose money, but there's more to it than that. In Do the Right Thing (Wharton School Publishing, $22.99), James F. Parker, who was Southwest's CEO in the three years following 9/11, says the real secret is treating employees and customers right. He tells how to do so by hiring selectively, making every frontline worker a leader by making every leader a frontline worker, and more.

This article was originally published in the February 2008 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: A Page Turner.