Grande Expectations: A Year in the Life of Starbucks' Stock

Blumenthal, a business journalist with more than 25 years of experience, puts her prodigious talents to work distilling a solid drama from the 2005 stock performance of steaming-hot coffee company Starbucks. Having been given access to the Starbucks' corporate office, the annual shareholders' meeting and other inner sanctums, Blumenthal (Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX) provides an outside expert's colorful, considered viewpoint on the caffeinated personalities behind the company's success, and the stock they propel, during a particularly tumultuous year: Hurricane Stan in Central America, a Starbucks stock split and the IPO of rival Caribou Coffee. Alongside prescient data analysis, Blumenthal provides intriguing glimpses of the culture: ""Shareholders huddled around tables bulging with stacks of muffins... and lined up ten deep at espresso bars. Emergency medical personnel actually tended to an older man who appeared to be having heart problems."" Blumenthal's transition between statistics and scenes of corporate color can be abrupt, but the intimate detail into which she delves makes this book stand out from the business-profile pack, and it's got enough narrative finesse to make it a fun read for both committed investors and the NYSE-curious.