News & Opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
We are booksellers. We are community builders.
By Porchlight
Bookselling, as a cultural and community-building practice, has been around a long time. Even hubs where people gathered around books, absorbed in their presence and engaged with other readers, is nothing new. The Alexandrian Library, founded in 300 BC in Egypt, encouraged the procurement of books, both from sellers and consumers alike.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
LeaveSmarter: Martha Rogers
By Porchlight
Last month, Martha Rogers was in town for our private LeaveSmarter event, sponsored by BMO Harris and Whyte Hirschboek Dudek. Martha delivered a powerful hour-long talk focusing on the benefits of putting the customer at the center of your business. As Martha puts it, ".
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The 2012 Business Book of the Year!
By Porchlight
The Advantage is a smart, quiet book. The valedictorian of the business book class of 2012 whose extracurricular is the chess club rather than debate or pep. The title and cover are straightforward.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Elite Eight: Our Picks for the Top Business Books of 2012
By Sally Haldorson
In anticipation of announcing the winner of the 2012 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year tomorrow, here's a recap of the category winners. Click on the links below to read more about these top books of 2012. Which book is *your* pick for the top book of the year?
Categories: news-opinion, narrative-biography
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Blog / News & Opinion
The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, General Business
By Porchlight
General Business is somewhat of a catch-all category for awards entries, one that often contains our founder Jack Covert's favorite kind of business books, Biographies & Narratives (a category we nixed a few years back much to his chagrin. ) This year's winner, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, published by the good people over at The Penguin Press, is a corporate exposé. But, as it was authored by two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, president of the New America Foundation, current staff writer for The New Yorker, and managing editor at The Washington Post from 1998 and 2004 Steve Coll, you can be assured of its great quality.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, Leadership
By Porchlight
If you're reading this, you probably have a strong commitment to, and defined goals in, your business life. But, if you can't generate commitment in others you'll likely fall short. And that's why John Jantsch'S The Commitment Engine: Making Work Worth It, published by Portfolio, earned the top spot in the Leadership category this year.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, Management
By Porchlight
Management Theory came a long way in the 20th Century, but it's always best when rooted in the basics. As the legendary early management theorist Mary Parker Follett put it, management is simply "the art of getting things done through people. " As we enter an age of increasing complexity in the 21st century it's good to remember this axiom, and the best Management book of the year, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni (published by Jossey-Bass), is deeply rooted in it.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, Marketing & Sales
By Porchlight
If you have a book in the same category as Dan Pink, it's going to be hard to beat him. And, although this year's Marketing & Sales category was extremely competitive, nobody did. Pink's To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others from Riverhead Books takes the prize.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, Entrepreneurship & Small Business
By Porchlight
Of all the categories in the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, the books in Entrepreneurship & Small Business usually contain the most immediately actionable ideas and instruction. This year is no exception. Chris Guillebeau's The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future, released by Crown Business, is a perfect primer for those looking to break out and build a business of their own—right.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, Personal Development
By Porchlight
Our founder and president, Jack Covert, recently told Andrew Hill of The Financial Times that business books, “in their core and their soul, are self-help books, where people go to make their company better, to make their job better. ” And while that may be true of business books in general, there are many that are very specifically directed at Personal Development. This year, the best of those was Cal Newport's So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love from Business Plus.
Categories: news-opinion
