Online bookseller Amazon.com’s list of the bestselling books at many of the world’s best-known companies, makes for interesting and often revealing reading. It also raises a few questions about the work-life balance of many of their employees.

For example, who would have thought that Unicenter TNG for Dummies would be the second most popular read at Computer Associates, who developed the Unicenter systems management software framework? It scarcely inspires confidence.

At Microsoft, meanwhile, the list comprises of books examining Microsoft itself, such as Adam Barr’s Proudly Serving My Masters: What I Learned in Ten Years as a Microsoft Programmer and Julie Bick’s All I Really Need to Know in Business I Learned at Microsoft.

Yet the most popular book of all at Microsoft was a beginner's guide to learning Japanese – whatever are Ballmer and Gates planning to do next?