Coinciding with the rise in entrepreneurship and self-employment, this year saw the publication of many great books for the startup founder and small business owner. Just in time for holiday shopping, here's a list of 10 great books—most, but not all, published this year—for the entrepreneur on your gift list.

1. The recent re-release of a classic, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, originally published in 1937, shares now ancient wisdom about self-empowerment and might have been the original "power of positive thinking" tome for the business set.

2. Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup, seems to share the same passion that The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferris has for freeing yourself from a boss in order to lead a life of international intrigue. But even if global airline travel and developing world adventures aren't what motivate you to be your own boss, Guillebeau's book shares some inspiring stories about how others started their own businesses on a shoestring.

3. The

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As the year comes to an end it is fitting that we look both backward and forward in this week's recommended reading. For many reasons it is a good time for reflection and using the lessons of the past to help move forward. It's also a good time to look to the things closest to us - family, friends, and yes, our businesses - and take a look at the bigger picture and make changes to improve where we are headed. This week in our Startup Diaries series we took a look at a business that made the tough decision to hit reset and postpone a launch rather than get it wrong. We also looked at one that looked inward and to the past to make the decision to take the leap into getting started.

The Small Business Administration continued to demonstrate why it is an effective branch of government for the small business person with the launch of a new program to help transition people from unemployment to self-employment. On the topic of getting people to work we also has an interesting op-ed looking

Read More »from Making hard decisions and employment: Small Business Reading

Small Business Administrator Karen Mills and Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced today that their agencies have partnered on a new program designed to help citizens who are receiving unemployment insurance to start their own businesses.

The program, targeted at state agencies and state legislators, will deliver resources at the state level so that all 50 states can provide self-employment assistance in the form of financial assistance, entrepreneurial training, and other resources to unemployed residents interested in launching businesses and creating new jobs.

The launch of the SBA/DOL Self-Employment Assistance Center website follows the release of a DOL guidance earlier this year governing state Self-Employment Assistance, or SEA, programs. The guidance—contained in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, which provided $35 million for states to create SEA programs and expand entrepreneurship opportunities—offers assistance and model legislation for

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The most important issue for Americans is jobs -- specifically, creating more of them. We heard it through the lowest point of the recession. We heard it during the 2012 presidential campaign. And we've heard it echoed in the media since. A largely untold story is one about the many jobs in our economy that remain unfilled due to the skills gap in the American labor force. It's clear that the technology sector is a powerful force in our economy -- but to fully harness its potential for growth, we need to ensure we have workers with required skills to fill the new types of jobs of these new companies.

We're playing catch up -- not unexpected, perhaps, given the incredibly fast rate at which the tech sector grows and changes and the comparatively slow (sometimes seemingly glacial) pace of institutional reform. The skills gap we're currently experiencing is indicative of a failure of policy to keep pace with changing technology, to the detriment of a faster economic recovery and our

Read More »from The One-Two Punch: Closing the Skills Gap in the American Workforce

Small business news was dominated by doom and gloom headlines this week, but every story has a silver lining.

Disaster recovery continues: Thousands of small businesses in New York and New Jersey continue to struggle through superstorm Sandy recovery efforts. Newsday reported that local officials believe that unless many businesses get help, they will close their doors.

The good news? Newsday reports that New York FEMA coordinator Michael Byrne said the agency is open to extending the deadline for disaster loan applications past December 31. Byrne told Newsday that FEMA and SBA want to hear from business owners in need of the deadline extension.

Fiscal cliff fears: The biggest fiscal cliff threat to small businesses is the little-talked-about end of the payroll tax holiday, which would raise the current 4.2 percent payroll tax to 6.2 percent--effectively a 2 percent paycut on a $113,000 salary, reports CNN Money:

"Ending the payroll tax holiday would take away $80 a month from someone

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Here at Yahoo! Small Business Advisor we started a new series this week - Startup Diaries. This series is going to follow between four and eight small businesses as they go through the ups and downs of establishing and running their businesses. Some are already established, some in the middle of starting up and some still in planning. But we are committed to bringing their stories and lessons learned regularly and in the authentic voices of the owners themselves. First up was a customer service insight from Art Cardenas and next a quick look at the kind of side task small business owners have to undertake in order to get from point A to point B. In this case some remodeling by P. Quick.

We also took a look at how technology is driving entrepreneurship and job creation, a really great article with seven reasons why a strong budget is a good idea and seven different viewpoints on what our politicians can do to help small business.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of

Read More »from New Startup Diaries Series, technology, budgets: Small Business Reading

New York Democratic Senator Kirstin Gillibrand is grabbing headlines in her state this week for pushing her colleagues to vote on the Small Business Lending Enhancement Act. The legislation, introduced by Colorado Senator Mark Udall in 2011, would address ongoing complaints about limited access to business loans by raising a cap on commercial loans that credit unions are permitted to make, based on a percentage of their assets.

Senate Bill 509, as it is known, "would amend the Federal Credit Union Act to advance the ability of credit unions to promote small business growth and economic development opportunities, and for other purposes." It has been sitting in the Banking Committee since March 2011.

According to a report published by public media aggregator Innovation Trail,

Passing the act would mean that credit unions could gradually increase their lending capability through a tiered system, with a new upper cap of 27.5 percent. Senator Gillibrand says passing this act would increase

Read More »from More credit union loans to small business? Banks say no

TechJobVisualization

There's an economic renaissance happening in America. The 21st Century jobs that are leading the American economy are powered by technologies created every day in labs and garages by students, innovators and entrepreneurs. It's a story many of us have become familiar with -- or so we thought. The truth is, the story of the technology-powered economic revival goes beyond the traditional tech centers of Silicon Valley and New York; it's a story that's being played out in communities all across the country.

More and more new data points and stories are highlighting that tech is leading the job revival in America. And this rebirth, though led by the traditional centers of innovation like San Francisco and Silicon Valley, is also taking root in every corner of this country, from Detroit to Kansas City, Los Angeles to Austin, Boise to Boulder.

I helped found Engine Advocacy last year to assist the startup and small business communities in the U.S. thrive via changes in policy, and we are

Read More »from Tech Works: How Technology is Leading America’s Economy