The received wisdom is that Britain is not a tasty place. Thanks to foreign holidays and Terence Conran, we have allowed ourselves to believe that France and Italy are paradises on earth and that Britain is a desolate, culture-free and pleasure-hating country of rain and boiled spinach. "I'm fed up with this country," we say to one another, and dream of the good life in the Languedoc.

While it's true [...]

Winning: the ultimate business how-to bookJack Welch with Suzy Welch HarperCollins, 372pp, £12.99ISBN 0007197675

You Can't Win a Fight With Your Boss and 55 Other Rules for SuccessTom Markert HarperCollins, 146pp, £9.99ISBN 0007227515

The Servant Leader: unleashing the power of your people50 Cautionary Tales for Managers Peter Honey, How To Books, 262pp, £12.99ISBN 0749445335

Bonjour Laziness: why hard work doesn't payCorinne Maier, Orion, [...]

Lars Svendsen's inquiry is a good, solid practical work of philosophy, in the tradition of Aristotle's Ethics and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. He has a light touch and a playful attitude, and draws on a wide range of texts, from Martin Heidegger and Samuel Beckett to Iggy Pop and the Pet Shop Boys.

The opening section is particularly strong. I was fascinated to learn that boredom was invented in 1760; [...]

It is one of those media standbys. You can almost predict its appearance every six months or so. Here it comes again - the Confederation of British Industry, all over the Today programme and the broadsheets with a guilt-inducing attack on the British worker and his or her propensity for throwing sickies. And there is always that figure, far too big to under- stand, the annual "cost to British industry" [...]