Close Book on ’92 and Open ’93 With a Book on Business : Reading: Here are 10 that help explain a changing world.

Here it is, January already: a new year, soon a new Administration in Washington, perhaps even a new era. The only thing likely to remain the same in 1993 is the byword for business: change.

Fortunately, business books are changing almost as fast as the times they hope to elucidate. Publishers of such books, in fact, report that 1992 was a banner year. Perhaps the pace of business change is such that people are turning to books for help in making sense of it all.

A new sobriety might be said to characterize many of this year’s most important books, as well as an emphasis on intangible--as opposed to material--rewards. In business books, at least, it’s humility over hubris, social responsibility over personal acquisition and teamwork over all. The long run is in. The short run is out. And “green” is hot.

As in most years, several thousand business books were published in 1992. These 10 might prove especially useful in understanding how the world of business is changing.

A great place to start is “Changing Fortunes: The World’s Money and the Threat to American Leadership” by Paul Volcker and Toyoo Gyohten (Times Books, $25). The former chairman of the Federal Reserve and his counterpart in the Japanese Ministry of Finance collaborated on this fascinating account of the world’s economy since 1945. The two were at opposite sides of the negotiating table on a number of key issues, and in this book they take turns reviewing the development of the international monetary system and economic life in general for the last several decades. This is economic history in the first person, and first-class in every way.

Lester Thurow, Dean of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, picks up this narrative and carries it into the future in “Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe and America” (Morrow, $25). Thurow persuasively analyzes the competition as a face-off between the consumer-driven capitalism of the United States and the producer-driven capitalism of Japan and Europe. In other words, spend now versus invest for later. Thurow says that education, investment and a national industrial policy are crucial if we are to avoid being left in the dust.

In a similar vein, and from someone about to be in a position to actually do something about it, is “Who’s Bashing Whom? Trade Conflict in High-Technology Industries” by Laura D’Andrea Tyson (Institute for International Economics, paper $25). Tyson, a UC Berkeley economist, is the Clinton designate to head the Council of Economic Advisers. Her agenda for promoting U.S. competitiveness in high-technology industries is not old-fashioned protectionism, but domestic supports and industrial policy aimed at defending U.S. industries in a world of manipulated trade and foreign targeting.

A bigger problem, arguably, and one that is impossible to ignore, is the federal budget deficit. It’s a testament to how things have changed that “Bankruptcy 1995: The Coming Collapse of America and How to Stop It” by Harry E. Figgie Jr. with Gerald J. Swanson (Little, Brown, $19.95) has become a best seller. Call him Cassandra, but Figgie, chairman of Figgie International, predicts that on our current course, annual interest on the national debt by 1995 will exceed what the government collects in income taxes. Figgie also proposes an action plan for the government and private citizens to deal with the emergency.

Now for a good time, consider Robert X. Cringely’s “Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can’t Get a Date” (Addison-Wesley, $19.95). Cringely’s gossipy column in InfoWorld, a trade magazine, is devoured by an army of nerds every week. Now, this former Stanford professor (who writes under a pseudonym) has penned a funny, engrossing account of the role played by happenstance and hormones in the development of the microcomputer industry. If you have any illusions that these pimply moguls had a clue about what they were doing when they launched a business that would change the world, this book will disabuse you. And Cringely knows his stuff.

Which brings us to individual business narratives, a subspecies of the business book noted for rousing reading. “Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire,” by Seattle Post Intelligencer reporters James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Wiley, $22.95), is interesting on several counts: It is the unauthorized biography of the richest man in America and the chronicle of the company he co-founded in 1975, as well as a case study in the new high-tech corporation and what makes it tick. With recent Federal Trade Commission scrutiny of Microsoft even as some hail it as a potential blue chip heir to IBM, this book is nothing if not timely.

For a look at an interesting California start-up, consider “The Republic of Tea: Letters to a Young Zentrepreneur” by Mel Ziegler, Bill Rosenzweig and Patricia Ziegler (Currency/Doubleday, $22.50). After founding the Banana Republic chain, entrepreneur Mel Ziegler sold it, retiring to study Zen and drink tea. A chance encounter with young Rosenzweig on an airplane sparked both of them and, over the course of several months and hundreds of faxes between them, their Republic of Tea was born as a business. The founders hope for a new kind of business, one that “holds no interest higher than using its products, its relationships, and its message to help people who see the wisdom in changing themselves as the first step to changing the world.”

Along the same lines but on the level of personal finance, try “Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence” by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (Viking, $21). It’s the seminal guide to the new morality of personal money management. According to the authors, who for more than two decades have lived on $6,000 a year in interest income, “we are still operating financially by the rules established during the Industrial Revolution--rules based on creating more material possessions. But our high standard of living has not led to a high quality of life--for us or for the planet.” They offer a new financial road map showing how to pay off your credit cards, get out of debt, rid yourself of the idea that more is better by rediscovering the concept of enough and, if you so desire, stop working for money. At the heart of the program is rethinking your relationship with money.

A value-neutral companion work might be “The New York Institute of Finance Guide to Investing,” 2nd edition (Simon & Schuster, paper $17.95). This title is too basic for a professional, but just right for the average individual investor. It’s a well-organized, up-to-date primer and ready-reference on the basics of investing.

Finally, as a stimulus to working smarter, not harder, in the New Year, turn to “The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure” by Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor (Basic Books, $21). Schor says that in the last 20 years, despite the relative decline of U.S. productivity, the amount of time Americans spend at their jobs has risen by an average of nine hours per year. In other words, by now we’re working an extra month annually. Schor shows how the addictive nature of consumption and the historic preference of employers for more work result in longer hours for most workers. To get off the work-and-spend treadmill, she says, we need to address some serious questions: Why have we chosen money over time? Can we afford to work less? Can less be more?

If you’ve been wondering who we are, where we are, or why, any one of these books is a good place to begin the new year.

Margaret Langstaff is a contributing editor at Publishers Weekly and writes frequently on business topics.