Making Sense of the Sensex

Last month, India saw its largest IPO ever, a $3 billion issue from Reliance Power Ltd. The power company unloaded all of its shares within 60 seconds. At the same time, the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share Sensitive Index, or Sensex, suffered some of its biggest point declines ever. Such contradictory economic developments make timely the arrival in bookstores of Riding the Indian Tiger: Understanding India -- The World's Fastest Growing Market (Wiley, 2008).

Authors William Nobrega and Ashish Sinha explain how a highly educated, increasingly English-speaking, fast-growing middle class is keen to speedily revamp their country's infrastructure and lure even more foreign investment. With a brief look at the past, data on recent growth, forecasts for a prolific future, and a chapter explaining Indian business culture, Riding the Indian Tiger can aid the investor or businessperson looking to jump on board the country's fast-emerging economy. -- Julie Grace Wenzel

A Tell-All About the Dollar

It's about time that someone in the writing trade has made the dollar the subject of a tell-all biography. Perhaps only Forrest Gump has marched through history with greater invisibility. It seems that no matter which part of the past hundred years or so you choose to explore, you find the dollar appearing in it -- in a starring role.

Thanks to Craig Karmin, a reporter for the "Money and Investing" section of The Wall Street Journal, we learn all about the USD in his new book Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It's Under Siege (Random House, 2008). In light of the beating the dollar has recently taken around the world and at home, it would appear that Karmin's book has arrived not a moment too soon. From the awesome power of the Federal Reserve to the currency's very humble greenback beginnings, Biography of the Dollar reveals why -- despite many pronouncements of its global decline -- there are still likely to be many more chapters about the dollar. -- Jack Sweeney