Business Books

By Andrea Sachs

Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding--and Managing--Romance on the Job

By Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen

Adams Media; 236 pages

Don't dip your pen in the inkwell, the saying goes. Don't fish off the company pier, says another. The common wisdom is that office romance--usually furtive, often forbidden--can be career suicide. But these thoughtful authors make a persuasive case that it's smart for today's single co-workers to mix: "We think office romance has gotten a bad rap," Losee and Olen write. "We think its time has come. In fact, the greatest pool of potential mates is not online, not in a bar, and not on a blind date. It's in the office."

The authors call the workplace the village or town square of the 21st century, asserting that "the office lends itself to old-fashioned courting ... Getting involved with an office mate means you don't have sex right away." More than 40% of employees at U.S. companies log more than 50 hours a week, the authors say, so the people you work with are likely to know you better than your own family. Where better, then, to find a compatible partner? Co-workers have also been vetted by HR to weed out untruths on their resumes. (Who can claim that about online suitors?)

There are, they allow, a few pitfalls. The most common is losing your job at a company in which "office-mating" is verboten. However, the authors say that relatively few companies have blanket bans (no pun intended) on interoffice relationships. The bigger problem is the possibility of a messy breakup. Here the authors get starry-eyed, advising couples to have a "prebreakup conversation" at the beginning of the relationship to strategize what they will do if things don't work out. That's easy advice from two women whose respective office romances ended in "I do."

The most troublesome affairs are between bosses and subordinates. Hazards range from accusations of favoritism to charges of sexual harassment, but the authors leave the door open for the most intrepid romantics: "Don't attempt to date your direct boss or your subordinate unless you can picture the whole picture. We're talking marriage (or forever togetherness), the mortgage, the kids--the works." If not, there's always the local bar.

King of the Club: Richard Grasso and the Survival of the New York Stock Exchange

By Charles Gasparino

Collins; 383 pages

It was the payday that shook Wall Street: nearly $140 million in compensation set aside for Big Board chairman Dick Grasso. But when Grasso, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, tried in 2003 to cash in early, the revelations about his staggering paycheck triggered an imbroglio that ended his eight-year reign as King of the Club and brought a lawsuit by then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Was Grasso, who was interviewed for the book, a victim of the post-Enron era or just another fat-cat CEO? Both. Gasparino insists that Grasso was "one of the most remarkable men Wall Street and corporate America has ever seen" as well as an autocrat whose "obsession with his enemies at times bordered on paranoia."

Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)

By James J. Cramer

Simon & Schuster; 269 pages

The bombastic host of CNBC's Mad Money is not known for understatement. His wild on-air rant in August about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke became a YouTube favorite. So it's hardly surprising that this book makes Cramer-sized claims about who can become wealthy: "I don't care if you don't have two cents to your name or if you owe thousands of dollars in credit-card debt." But he displays surprising earnestness in showing readers how to beat the market by saving steadily and studying up.