The 2008 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards - Entrepreneurship and Small Business Category

The books on our 2008 shortlist for the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Category are:

• Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur
  by Richard Branson (Virgin Books, Sept 2008)
  
  The selection here is simple: Branson is and continues to be the world's most recognized entrepreneur. Virgin Mobile USA reached one billion dollars in revenues faster than any company in history (Google and Amazon included). With over 300 companies under the Virgin umbrella, there are more than enough stories and lessons to share.


• The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up
  by Bo Burlingham and Norm Brodsky (Portfolio, October 2008)
  
  Brodsky and Burlingham have been writing their "Street Smarts" column for Inc. Magazine since 1995, and now they have compiled that useful wisdom in this collections of stories about companies that have "the knack" for facing challenges and pursuing opportunities. The first chapter's description of gross margin and its make-or-break effect on a fledging business alone earns it the top spot this year.


• Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
  by Guy Kawasaki (Portfolio, November 2008)
  
  Five parts practical and one part humor, Guy delivers 94 chapters of the art and reality of business. The material ranges from six lessons from micro-loan lender Kiva, to archetypes you want on a company board, to psychology professor Carol Dweck's Effort Effect. This powerful potpourri of top ten lists and distillations contains a solution for any problem you might face.


• What's Stopping You?: Shatter the 9 Most Common Myths Keeping You from Starting Your Own Business
  by Bruce R. Barringer and R Duane Ireland (FT Press, May 2008)
  
  These professors take a more academic look at entrepreneurship and seek to dispel some falsehoods that have persisted in starting a new business, including "starting a business involves lots of risk," "it takes a lot of money to start a business" and "the best business ideas are already taken."