Best Autobiography by a Furniture Magnate

Jake Jabs came out fighting when the News and Post announced their proposed JOA. But then, he's taken on wilder beasts than rampaging publishers, as becomes clear in the first few pages of his self-published autobiography, An American Tiger ($19.95 at an American Furniture Warehouse store near you, or online). The rags-to-recliners story starts with Jabs's childhood on a hardscrabble farm in Montana and ends with his triumphant crowning as the National Home Furnishing Association's 2000 Retailer of the Year; along the way, Jabs also manages to include dozens of pages from his American Furniture Warehouse customer-service and employee policies. But then, Jabs knows all about how to overstuff a package.