NEW YORK, Sept 1 — With just a week left before the unofficial end of what has been a relentless summer of business news — the fate of Greece, the economic woes of China and the market roller coaster in the United States — hopefully you might find the time to read a book.

I’m obsessed with business books, especially ones that provide insight into the people behind the companies and inventions that drive the global economy. I’ve compiled a list of some of my favourites from the past year. There are incisive biographies, gripping narratives and thoughtful industry overviews — but they all give readers an understanding of the human drama behind every business saga.

At the top of my list is a book about the most interesting entrepreneur of the moment, Elon Musk. Between Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity, Musk has revolutionised the automobile industry, space exploration and clean energy. While questions remain about the lofty values and sustainability of Musk’s businesses, Ashlee Vance’s “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” gives readers a glimpse of what drives the 44-year-old South African dreamer. The book is particularly revelatory about Musk’s childhood, telling of an abusive father and a difficult time at school, where he was bullied by his peers.

Ashlee Vance’s book gives readers a glimpse of what drives the 44-year-old South African dreamer.

“For some reason they decided that I was it, and they were going to go after me nonstop,” he told Vance. “And then I’d come home, and it would just be awful there as well.” Says a schoolmate of Musk: “Honestly, there were just no signs that he was going to be a billionaire.”

At a time when great wealth and inequality are topics of growing concern, “The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger,” by Greg Steinmetz, a former journalist turned securities analyst, introduces an obscure but fascinating business titan. Jacob Fugger, a German banker in the 15th century, “could have been a Russian oligarch, a Latin American telecoms boss or an American railroad baron from the 19th century,” Steinmetz says. The grandson of a peasant, Fugger was an enterprising and sometimes insufferably confident man who cornered the copper market in Europe and then became one of the world’s most influential bankers, counting even the pope as a client.

If you’re thinking of creating the next billion-dollar startup, or just trying to understand the psyche of today’s Silicon Valley, read Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.” I’ve read it several times and each time I learn something new from Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal turned venture capitalist with early stakes in Facebook and LinkedIn. One of his rules: “A company does better the less it pays its CEO.” Thiel says he won’t invest in a company that pays its CEO more than US$150,000 (RM625,000) because he thinks a “cash-poor” executive will be hungrier to create value and it sets a good example to the rest of the company. He also argues that engineers often fail to appreciate the importance of ensuring that a product will sell in the marketplace.

“If anything, people overestimate the relative difficulty of science and engineering, because the challenges of those fields are obvious,” Thiel writes. “What nerds don’t realise is that it also takes hard work to make sales look easy.” And the next time you have to interview a job candidate, you might want to try Thiel’s favourite question: “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

‘Red Notice’ is part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir.

Bethany McLean’s new book, “Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the US Mortgage Giants,” is a detailed examination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. More academic reading than beach fare, this slim yet dense volume explores the history of Fannie and Freddie and the controversial role that the government-sponsored entities continue to play in the recovering housing market, seven years after the financial crisis.

If you have a cross-country plane ride coming up, pick up a copy of “Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder and One Man’s Fight for Justice,” by Bill Browder. It is part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir, and in it Browder, an early hedge-fund investor in Russia, tells the story of how the Kremlin raided his fund, kicked him out of the country and perpetrated an elaborate financial fraud. The lawyer he hires to investigate the crime is murdered, and Browder seeks to avenge his death. It’s a hard book to put down.

My favourite kind of business books are deeply reported fly-on-the-wall narratives that put the reader in the middle of the action while telling an important story at the same time. “Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money,” by Nathaniel Popper, is an artfully told tale of the origins of bitcoin. Maybe I’m biased because Popper is a colleague at The New York Times and I encouraged him to write it, but everywhere I go, people on Wall Street and Silicon Valley praise the book. Whether bitcoin turns out to be a lasting currency or the latest financial fad, it will have had a major impact on the future of electronic currency. This book is the best story of the roots of that future thus far. — The New York Times