Canter Bridge

If you need to keep abreast of financials and business on a monthly basis, Forbes and Fortune are the two conventional choices.

I started reading Fortune—and subscribing—four years ago when I realized that the business people with whom I associated regularly simply assumed that one knew any news or analysis that broke in its pages. It fits as a must-read monthly overview in my reading habits.

Fortune represents a generally bullish and strongly pro-business perspective with just a touch of cynicism about corporate leadership and its trends. You won’t find anything radical here, but you need to have read it if this kind of news, analysis, and opinion fits your job description or personal interests.

There is a smattering of ‘toys for the businessperson’ in each edition. For me, the highlight is Stanley Bing’s delicious, irreverent, and every so slightly jaded backpage column. I routinely scan it or mail it to a relative who laughs out loud at Bing’s corporate lunacy as I do.

Fortune is behind the eponymous Fortune 500 and other derivative lists. For me, one of the most valuable is the magazine’s annual ‘500 largest corporations by revenue’, though this is dictated by the scope of my own interests. Other readers will tear out or access other Fortune lists online with equal interest.

If you’re in business or work with people who are, you’d better be reading Fortune or Forbes or both.