Celebrating women's push into executive roles

Part memoir, part reflection on business life, Good Enough for the Bastards is a best-seller by Anita Krohn Traaseth, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Norway, encouraging women to reach for the top jobs.

The book, in the same vein as Lean In by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, took Norway by storm this year, selling 16,000 copies in a country where a nonfiction book is considered a hit if it breaks through the 800 mark.

The title is one of her father's favorite expressions, meant to encourage her to avoid unnecessary perfectionism. "He would say: 'Anita, when you try something out, it only has to be good enough for the bastards'," she says.