These are the best business books of 2009, as ranked by Fast Company.

1.In CHEAP We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue by Lauren Weber. This history of frugality in America–why it’s been stigmatized and whether there’s a sustainable alternative to a purely consumption-based economy–is consistently surprising and clever. A very worthwhile indulgence.

2. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by Adam L. Penenberg. No book better explains the rocket-ship growth of a service like Facebook or Twitter and how their rapid spread through the culture isn’t accidental but carefully baked into the product.

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The following is a list of the bestselling paperback business books as ranked by the New York Times on January 18.

1. The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. The evolving business of football, viewed through the rise of the left tackle Michael Oher.

2. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. A maverick scholar and a journalist apply economic theory to everything from cheating sumo wrestlers to the falling crime rate.

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Here are the Amazon’s “Editors’ Picks” of the best business and investing books of 2009.

1. The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street by Justin Fox. Time magazine’s editor-at-large leads readers on a chronological journey of modern economic theory, featuring the cast of scholars who constructed the 20th- and 21st-century financial landscape, from Irving Fisher to such post-WWII figures as Milton Friedman, Harry Markowitz, Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller, Jack Treynor and William Sharpe. He offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at academia’s finest, complete with amusing anecdotes about the players and their theories, and illustrates how our economic behaviors and markets have been shaped by a gradually refined theory holding that the stock market prices are both random and perfectly rational.

2. Fool’s Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe by Gillian Tet. Drawing on exclusive access to J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a tightly bonded team of bankers known on Wall Street as the “Morgan Mafia,” as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of other key players, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Tett brings to life in gripping detail how the Morgan team’s bold ideas for a whole new kind of financial alchemy helped to ignite a revolution in banking, and how that revolution escalated wildly out of control.

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Here are the Amazon’s “Editors’ Picks” of the best business and investing books of 2009.

1. The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street by Justin Fox. Time magazine’s editor-at-large leads readers on a chronological journey of modern economic theory, featuring the cast of scholars who constructed the 20th- and 21st-century financial landscape, from Irving Fisher to such post-WWII figures as Milton Friedman, Harry Markowitz, Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller, Jack Treynor and William Sharpe. He offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at academia’s finest, complete with amusing anecdotes about the players and their theories, and illustrates how our economic behaviors and markets have been shaped by a gradually refined theory holding that the stock market prices are both random and perfectly rational.

2. Fool’s Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe by Gillian Tet. Drawing on exclusive access to J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a tightly bonded team of bankers known on Wall Street as the “Morgan Mafia,” as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of other key players, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Tett brings to life in gripping detail how the Morgan team’s bold ideas for a whole new kind of financial alchemy helped to ignite a revolution in banking, and how that revolution escalated wildly out of control.

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The following is a list of the bestselling hardcover business books as ranked by the New York Times on January 4.

1. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. A scholar and a journalist apply economic thinking to everything: the sequel.

2. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. hy some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent — from the author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

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