Shelf Life

Wealthy entrepreneurs are spending millions of dollars to develop spaceships and a space hotel for what they see as the next big thing: commercial space travel. Author Michael Belfiore has a new book about it. He talks with Kai Ryssdal.

We've asked some of our commentators to send along their nominations for the best business beach books. For today's final installment writer Harriet Rubin recommends a contemporary novel about the beauty of innovation.

In our continuing series on the best business beach books, economist Marcellus Andrews picked one that really is all business: "Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism."

Commentator David Frum offers up a Dickens classic that's all about the markets.

Engineering professor Bill Hammack says Thomas Barnett's book is a perfect confection of bite-sized ideas about our global economy to nibble between dips.

We've asked some of our commentators to give us their picks for the best business beach book ever. Nell Minow kicks off our weeklong series with a classic tale about a thief. Give us your picks, too.

Who says crime fiction and the stock market don't mix? Amy Scott pours over a new collection of noir stories from Wall Street coming out this summer.

If people disappeared from the planet tomorrow, nature would work fast to dismantle most anything man-made. Kai Ryssdal ponders a humanless world with Alan Weisman, author of "The World Without Us."

Before crude oil, there was whale oil. Kai Ryssdal sits down with Eric Jay Dolin, who talks about the American whaling industry in his new book.

Once upon a time, publishers would go the extra mile to help their first-time writers. But no longer. Sally Herships reports that the book party, which used to be a staple of the publishing industry, has largely vanished.