Fashioning Reality: A New Generation of Entrepreneurship, by Ben Barry, Key Porter Books, $24.95 (£12)

Bit of a child prodigy, eh? Uh huh. Barry founded his business, a modelling agency, at 14 and has since won all sorts of awards for being young, successful and Canadian.

I’m young. Well, youngish. What can I learn? Well, to start with there’s discussion about Barry’s childhood (he liked to pretend to be an executive running mergers) and a lot of talk about his attitude to beauty (most models tend to be tall, white, young and skinny, but this isn’t normal; he prefers people with charisma).

I’m not interested in a lecture about body image. Fair enough, though the underlying point – that it is possible to run a socially responsible business – has much broader application.

I’m looking for practical advice more than theory. There’s plenty to be gleaned from Barry’s own progress, for example how he persuaded potential clients to take a risk with his nontraditional models, although admittedly much of this section reads more like an autobiography than a business book. The (much shorter) second part focuses directly on the business issues he faced.

Beautiful.

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