Financial writer Robert Hagstrom has referred to investing as "the last liberal art" -- a field of endeavor that requires familiarity with an enormous breadth of knowledge and ability to synthesize between various sources of knowledge.

Numbers play a huge role in the world of investing and economics and in the current market where financial news dominates world news, we are bombarded with data every day. In The Numbers Game, Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot explain the dirty little tricks that statistics play on us, and how we can arm ourselves for dealing with them without dismissing numbers altogether.

The honeymoon between Warren Buffett and the biographer he allowed access to his personal records has ended. For more than a decade, each Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) annual meeting has included a question and answer session between Alice Schroeder and the Oracle of Omaha.

The event -- held as a dinner at a local country club has been canceled, "apparently because of his displeasure with some aspects of Ms. Schroeder's 960-page encyclopedic best seller about his life," according to The New York Times.

Buffett and Schroeder deny any particular rift and say that they still do communicate, though with less frequency because the work on the book is finished.

If Buffett is concerned about the public knowing intimate details of his life, he shouldn't be. The book has sold a lot of copies but at 976 pages, it's doubtful that the majority of buyers ever actually read it.

Being the untalented brother of one of the greatest sluggers of all-time can't be easy. How is Jay McGwire dealing with it? By trying to sell publishers a on a book called "The McGwire Family Secret: The Truth about Steroids, a slugger and Ultimate Redemption."

If Jay is as bad at writing books as he is at coming up with titles, this one could rival Jose Canseco's Juiced as one of the worst books of all-time. Jay claims that his brother Mark started using steroids in 1994, and that he personally injected him.

"Mark is a man I think most would like to forgive because his reason wasn't nefarious -- it was for survival," the proposal says, according to Deadspin. "My bringing the truth to surface about Mark is out of love. I want Mark to live in truth to see the light, to come to repentance so he can live in freedom -- which is the only way to live."

The first authorized sequel to A.A. Milne's beloved Winnie the Pooh series will make its debut this year. David Benedictus's "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" will be in stores on October 5. Dutton Children's Books is the publisher, and executive Don Weisberg says the book will be a "huge seller for a long, long time."

To its credit, Milne's estate has carefully guarded the character -- they could have easily cashed in for millions years ago by authorizing sequel after sequel. That Mr. Benedictus was finally the one who convinced them would seem to suggest that the book will be quite good.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "The troubled book industry, in need of titles that will pull readers into the stores, will get a much-needed jolt" from the title.

I somehow doubt that Winnie will be a big enough hit to provide much relief to booksellers. But he's a hard guy not to root for.

There are times when technology displaces existing products and services, and times when it augments or supports existing products and services.

Further, while there is little doubt that online news and publishing is displacing newspapers and magazines - - it's at minimum forcing them to revise their missions and alter business models - - the same can not be said, at least at this stage of the digital age, regarding the Internet's impact on books.

Try curling up with a good computer screen

Initially, critics and other observers declared 'the end of books' - - that readers would gravitate toward reading books on computer screens. Reading a book on a computer screen?

Thankfully, the initial panic that gripped book publishers soon faded after what was clear to anyone who reads books became clear to publishing executives during a calmer moment: that the experience of reading a printed book in a traditional setting (such as in your favorite chair in a living room or study, or even on an outdoor deck / patio) is vastly superior to reading a book on a flat panel screen. Try curling up with a good computer screen.

not Harry Potter.

Not Twilight or even the latest thriller from James Patterson. The bestselling book of 2008 is, just like every other year, The Bible. 90% of U.S. households already have at least one copy, but slick marketing and endless procession of new editions with new translations, new illustrations, and new limited edition leather bindings helps The Bible sell about 25 million copies each year.

A fascinating piece in the December 23 Wall Street Journal (subscription required) looks at the brilliant niche marketing that keeps people who already have Bibles coming back to buy more each year: there are special editions for surfers, golfers, fashionistas, alcoholics and anime fans.

Bibles have been big business as long as they've been around: It was the first book to roll off of Gutenberg's printing press and, according to scholars, there's probably never been a year since then when it didn't sell more copies than any other book. In the first half of this century, it was a business dominated by door to door salesmen immortalized in this classic documentary from 1968.

According (PDF File) to religious publisher Thomas Nelson, 38% of Bible buyers already own between three and ten copies of the book, and most Bibles are bought as gifts.

Shares of Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) are down 26% to 39 cents per share today after the company announced an agreement to "extend the expiration date of the previously announced Borders option to "put" its U.K.-based Paperchase gifts and stationery business to Pershing Square for $65 million, subject to certain conditions."

The company also extended the deadline for its repayment of a $42.5 million loan made to to the company by Pershing Square, a hedge fund run by superstar value investor William Ackman.

Last month Borders abandoned its efforts to sell itself but with its balance sheet presenting a serious problem in the face of tanking sales, investors are incredibly skeptical about the company's future. The company's market cap of less than $25 million indicates that many investors believe that the company is a candidate for bankruptcy court.

While the economic smackdown certainly isn't Borders' fault, the company has made an enormous number of strategic blunders, starting with investing millions of dollars in an e-commerce site that will never be a serious threat to larger rivals.

Bookselling behemoth Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) has signed a deal with HarperStudio to accept the new News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) imprint's books on a nonreturnable basis. In the publishing industry, unsold books can generally be returned to the publisher. In exchange, Borders will get a slightly better deal: 58% to 63% off the cover price, instead of the usual 48%, according (subscription required) to The Wall Street Journal.

Is this the future of the book business? No one knows, but the timing certainly couldn't be more strange for Borders. Terrible results and a failed effort to sell the company have sent the stock down to 65 cents per share. The company's balance sheet is a mess and there has been considerable speculation that the company's final destination is bankruptcy. Given those circumstances, it's hard to understand why the company would want to invest in inventory that they're completely on the hook for -- and can't return if they can't sell it.

HarperStudio is a brand new imprint, with former Hyperion boss Robert Miller at the helm. The plan is to shake up the publishing industry with lower advances offset by higher royalties. Cutting down on returns is another goal aimed at reducing costs.

Scoring this deal with Borders looks like quite a coup for HarperStudio, but it remains to be seen how long Borders will last as a relevant piece of the bookselling industry.

This post is part of our feature on Money Winners of 2008. See all 20.

They called her Caribou Barbie. Saturday Night Live lampooned her mercilessly during the presidential election. The media elite denounced her as an idiot and a right-wing loony tune. But Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not going to fade into the snow of the beautiful state she governs. In fact, she is coming to a book store near you.

Media reports indicate that the former vice presidential nominee is expected to earn $7 million to tell her life story to a ghost writer. That's not too shabby considering that former president Bill Clinton got about $11 million for his life story and he actually was the leader of the free world. Barack Obama and his former rival John McCain both have earned big money from their books, so why shouldn't Palin.

There was also some talk during the campaign about a talk show or reality show starring the woman responsible for giving Tina Fey's career a boost -- as if it really needed one -- but that seems to have gone nowhere.

Palin, though, will have the last laugh on her naysayers, including me. During her brief time in the spotlight, Palin transformed herself from an obscure politician to a cultural icon. Along the way, she infuriated many voters and charmed more than a few. The power of Palin's celebrity will entice people who may not agree with her politically to buy her book. Her devoted fans will line up at the bookstores to buy it as well. Palin's tome has the makings of a best-seller.

The best business books are almost always the ones about scandal.

Success is great, but it's much more interesting to read about a convoluted web of lies designed to bilk investors out of $500 million over 20 years in what is possibly the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history (with the exception of Social Security).

In The Hit Charade: Lou Pearlman, Boy Bands, and the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. History, Radar reporter Tyler Gray examines boy band mogul Lou Perlman's illustrious career that involved deception from the beginning. It started with an airline that didn't own any planes but was able to raise hundreds of millions to fund a lavish lifestyle and later provide the start-up capital to form hit boy bands including N'SYNC, The Backstreet Boys, and O-Town.

Gray writes well, with an eye for what's interesting and relevant -- I read the entire book in an afternoon, and The Hit Charade isn't bogged down with the minutiae of the scam the way that so many of these books are. Instead it paints an interesting portrait of a complex charlatan -- Gray was the only reporter to interview Pearlman while he was behind bars.

What sets Pearlman apart from so many other frauds is that his impact is so enduring: He created the soundtrack for a generation of teenage girls, and paved the way for Justin Timberlake to become one of the biggest pop stars ever. Without Lou Pearlman, there never would have been this.

In his book The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual, disgraced former Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) internet stock analyst Henry Blodget explained his downfall this way:

If missing the top had been my only mistake, I would have survived . . . I also made a more serious mistake, however, which was to write a lot of emotional unprofessional e-mails, especially during the heat of the crash. Later, amid the wreckage, when the press, public, and regulators began calling for blood, my emails did me in . . . I was accused by New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer of having made remarks in e-mails that were "inconsistent" with my research (popular translation: "privately trashing stocks he was public recommending"). Along with others, I agreed to pay a humongous fine and be barred from the industry.

Cue the ironic music: Blodget has since experienced a comeback of sorts a blogger and columnist for Slate.com. Now that Spitzer's career is over after a gigantic scandal and guess where he'll be writing a column? Yep: at Slate.com with old friend. Is Slate planning to sell tickets to its Christmas party? Perhaps they could auction them off to raise money for people who lost money in the NASDAQ bubble, or perhaps pay for counseling for former prostitutes, or both.

Publishing powerhouse Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has announced that it will not be acquiring new books until further notice. Houghton's textbook arm will not be affected by the move, but the 400 title per year trade and reference arm will be.

The publisher still has some new titles in the pipeline, so it's unclear how output will be affected in the short-term, and the company has declined to say how long the freeze will last. But if it goes for awhile, Philip Roth and Richard Dawkins could be on the lookout for new publishers. But The Wall Street Journal adds (subscription required) that "To be sure, 'freeze' is a murky term in business. If the next "War and Peace" appears at Houghton's doorstep, editors may persuade their superiors to buy it."

The company's strategy here appears to be to batten down the hatches and conserve cash while continuing to milk its classic franchises like The Lord of the Rings.

It's interesting to note that the company isn't cutting back on its textbooks. As I've written on WalletPOP, textbooks are outrageously overpriced and are updated far more frequently than they need to be in order to render used copies obsolete and force students to buy new books.

While you might argue that the book's very title is an oxymoron, The Ethical Executive, by Robert Hoyk and Paul Hersey, is instead a fabulous and practical text that may as well have been titled, "How Not to be Kenneth Lay," and its faithful application could have prevented our entire current economical crisis. Having dutifully passed my requirement of Ivy League MBA ethics coursework and been duly unimpressed by its ability to stop unethical behavior (as I learn from this book, even in my own generally honest self), I would recommend that business schools, university political science and marketing programs, and even small business owners and parents adopt this as the primary ethics text.

The problem, as authors describe in the introductory chapters, is that ethics aren't acquired from our education. Discussing a case study in class -- even if it's at Harvard Business School (especially if it is?) -- does not "teach" ethics. No, our parents teach us ethics. And as Hoyk and Hersey write, "what is most lacking in books on ethics is a major emphasis on the root causes of unethical behavior--psychological dynamics." In order for a typical person, with typical familial upbringing and core values, to behave ethically does not call for a strategy for thinking about an ethical problem (the approach taken by traditional ethics textbooks); no, the authors argue, it takes knowledge of the potential "ethical traps" you might encounter. Awareness equals ethical power. Managers (and parents, teachers, whomever) can "use their understanding to objectify what's happening to them."

Hoyk and Hersey lay out 45 ethical traps and give examples of psychological research and real-life ethical foulups, from Enron to Worldcom to Jim Jones. I recognized nearly every one from my life, both in business and in my relationships with my infamously principle-bereft in-laws. What's more, I recognized the traps in the behavior of the key figures in the financial meltdown.

So, how will booksellers such as Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), Borders Group (NYSE: BGP), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) fare during the holiday season? It's an interesting question, one which is examined in an article at The New York Times. The piece talks about how the current recession seems to be affecting consumers and their desire to buy books. At the beginning of the article, two shoppers are browsing in a bookstore -- one buys, the other doesn't. Both have been affected by the bad economy. What are we to make of this?

I'll give you my take on things. Books, unfortunately, are simply not so glamorous these days. And I do think that booksellers are going to have a hard time this holiday season. With all the competition from video games and other media, the printed page just isn't that exciting to a lot of consumers. I don't think that books will be a top priority as the wallet continues to get squeezed and while job security remains an issue. Our attention spans have been cut so short these days, and they're only getting shorter. In an era of MTV quick-edits and PowerPoint presentations, 100,000-word diversions don't feel so diverting anymore.

Books are probably even less exciting to young people. Seriously, how many kids have books on their Christmas lists this year? They may want the latest Blu-ray cartoon from Disney (NYSE: DIS), or the latest Call of Duty game from Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), but I'm not so sure they want the latest Stephen King novel (as for me, I picked up King's latest short-story collection Just After Sunset at my local Barnes & Noble). Many kids have been introduced to the joys of reading through the Harry Potter series, but I don't think Potter will be working his magic this season. If parents do cut back this year on presents, I figure they're going to err on the side of making sure that all the non-book gifts are acquired.

Is there anything the booksellers can do about this?

Memo to T. Boone Pickens: before you write another book about the art of the comeback, make sure your comeback is complete and that your career is on stable ground.

On September 2, Pickens' book The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future hit the stores. Now he's in need of another comeback as a huge pullback in energy prices and investor withdrawals have sent the value of Pickens' hedge fund assets down to less than $500 million. When his fund peaked in June, he was managing $2 billion.

With the market in the toilet and investors fleeing for the exits, Pickens has reportedly moved the fund almost entirely into cash -- perhaps a sign that he has abandoned his long-term bullish outlook on oil prices.

However, Pickens' contributions to America now go beyond wealth-building. While he initially made his name as a Carl Icahn-style corporate raider back in the 1980s, he's moved on to finding solutions to our dependence on foreign oil. The Pickens Plan has garnered the support of the Sierra Club, former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, and even Senator Barack Obama -- an impressive feat given that Pickens is an ardent Republican.

And he's not out money yet. Apparently he just gave $63 million to Oklahoma State to pay for a football stadium.