BTW

The Key To Success Might Be Under Your Cocktail Glass

By Peter Coy

The latest publishing minitrend: books that teach the art of problem-solving. On napkins. Penguin Group (USA)’s Portfolio has published The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, by management consultant Dan Roam. It’s a right-brain book that urges people to imagine their way out of business challenges by drawing—everything from pie charts to stick figures. Then there’s Prince­ton University Press’ Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin, by physicist Lawrence Weinstein and mathematician John Adam, both of Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, Va. It’s a left-brain book that helps you approximate answers to the types of questions actually asked in some job interviews today. (Example: “How many golf balls would it take to circle the Earth at the equator?”)