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Best Books for Business

Trust a crime writer to get business right. While at a used bookstore on vacation this summer, I picked up a 1977 novel by Elmore Leonard called The Hunted. In it, Leonard's got one of the pithiest descriptions of how to succeed in business that I've ever come across.

"In the business world, you don't prepare yourself for a certain job and that's it, like a bookkeeper, a tax accountant. You hire those people," one character, a successful businessman, explains to a marine, who is about to retire from the service and is looking for direction. "What you do, you keep your eyes open, you use a little imagination seeing how you can fit into a situation or how you can bend the situation around so it fits you."

Then again, this particular businessman is on the run from mobsters, so there you go.

What are your favorite books about business? Send titles to me at [email protected]. We're taking the kitchen-sink approach here, so include books that are partner-specific, market-specific, management tomes and even books that aren't obviously about business but inspire your work. When we get enough, we'll pull them into a list to share.

Posted by Scott Bekker on October 18, 2007


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