Used by permission from Cliff Ennico, author of “The eBay Seller’s Tax and Legal Answer Book”.

      “I’m a big fan of your column, but I do have one question.  I notice that you don’t do ‘book reviews’ very often.  I’m looking for some good ‘summer beach reading’, and would love to hear a list of your favorite business books.”

            While I refer to business books often in my columns, I don’t generally do “book reviews” as such, for two reasons.

            First, there are so many new business books coming about that nobody can keep track of them all.  Once I start reviewing some of these, I will have to start reviewing all of them, and this will become a “book review” column to the exclusion of everything else.

            But more importantly, I don’t do business book reviews because I’ve found that the best books for entrepreneurs have little if anything to do with business per se.

            Let me explain . . . .

            When you’re starting out in your own business, your first and biggest challenge is to get customers or clients.  It’s the “biggest challenge” because in business you have absolutely no control over the customer and what they want.  You can be the greatest business genius since J. P. Morgan, but if you’re selling products and services no one wants to buy, you will find yourself in bankruptcy court along with all of the ignoramuses.

Getting customers and generating sales does not require a knowledge of business so much as it does an appreciation of human nature.   Virtually all of my most successful small business clients spend a lot of time and effort crawling inside their customers’ heads and learning what makes them tick.  Show me an entrepreneur that understands how the human mind works, and has a keen understanding of the forces shaping and changing American society and culture, and I will (almost always) show you a successful entrepreneur.

To understand your customers, and spot market opportunities before your competition does, I would strongly suggest you leave the “business” section of your bookstore behind and mosey on over to the “psychology” and “sociology” sections.  Very often, the best books for your business can be found there.

Here are some excellent “non-business” books that will help you build a successful business.  They are also fun to read.

“Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” by Neal Postman.  Anybody who wants to understand how American society works today needs to read every book written by Neal Postman.  Originally published in 1985 (before the Internet!), this groundbreaking book describes the corrosive effects of television on American society.  Postman’s theme is the decline of the printed word and the ascendancy of the “tube” with its tendency to present everything — murder, mayhem, politics, even weather — as entertainment.  

“Life, The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality” by Neal Gabler.  A leading Hollywood historian and biographer of Walt Disney, Gabler takes Postman’s thesis a step further and argues that the omnipresence of media in our lives is causing us to lose our grip on reality.  Instead of confronting life as it is, Gabler argues, we develop and act out “scripts” as if we were acting in a movie or theatrical production.  Anyone who has ever waited in line at a Starbucks® will understand completely what Gabler is talking about.

“Rejuvenile” by Christopher Noxon.  A funny but sobering account of how Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers have cast aside traditional notions of “maturity” in favor of indulging their “inner children” well into middle age. 

“Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There” by David Brooks.  Observers of the Baby Boom generation have long noted two contradictory impulses – their ruthless drive to succeed in business and their adoption of the bohemian, “hippie” lifestyles and beliefs of the 1960’s and 1970’s counterculture.  Brooks’ book attempts to reconcile these two extremes by pointing out the ways in which Boomers are increasingly using capitalistic means to achieve socialistic ends. 

“The Paradox of Choice:  Why More is Less,” by Barry Schwartz.  A persuasive argument that human beings can only handle so many choices at a given time, and that a marketer’s challenge is to find the “optimum” number of options for customers, without attempting to customize products and services for every single individual on Earth. 

“I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” by Bill Bryson.  The dust jacket calls Bryson a “humorist,” which I don’t think is right, because he isn’t really funny (“droll” would be a better word).  But this collection of newspaper articles, written by an American who returned to the U.S. after a 20-year stint abroad, contains some very sharp and subtle perceptions about how America changed during the 1980’s and 1990’s. 

“Democracy in America,” by Alexis de Tocqueville.  Observations of America by non-Americans, intended for an overseas market, are always worth reading.  This is one of the oldest, and still the best.  If you didn’t read it in college, now’s the time – we may look a lot different than we did in de Tocqueville’s time, but we’re still basically the same people.  Or, as the French say, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Happy reading, and happy end of summer.

            Cliff Ennico (cennico@legalcareer.com ) is a syndicated columnist, author and host of the PBS television series ‘Money Hunt’.  His latest books are ‘Small Business Survival Guide’ (Adams Media, $12.95) and ‘The eBay Seller’s Tax and Legal Answer Book’ (AMACOM, $19.95).  This column is no substitute for legal, tax or financial advice, which can be furnished only by a qualified professional licensed in your state.  To find out more about Cliff Ennico and other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit our Web page at www.creators.com.  COPYRIGHT 2007 CLIFFORD R. ENNICO.  DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

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