Reading about other people’s successes and failures as entrepreneurs can hold the key to helping you decide how to navigate your own business, says Anne Marie Knott, visiting assistant professor of entrepreneurship and management at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Ms. Knott, who became fascinated with the lives of entrepreneurs in the sixth grade, when she started to check out library books about businesspeople like Franklin Winfield Woolworth, says certain biographies can not only help readers get a sense of which business theories work, but also help them develop their own theories about how to find success.

Here are some of the books she suggests, with her comments on each.