The 2018 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards Shortlist

Business books have long had a ‘change’ ethos about them, but the change that business brings to society isn’t universally positive. It is as important to wrestle with the negative effects as it is to celebrate the ways in which business can and does make the world better. We are at an inflection point in both business and society. The eight books on our shortlist all tackle that in some way, with profound implications for the infrastructure we are designing and building today—technologically, culturally, politically, and socially.

The books on the shortlist for this year’s 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year Award are:

• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown, Random House (Leadership & Strategy)
• Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes, MIT Press (Innovation & Creativity)
• Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary by Louis Hyman, Viking (Narrative & Biography)
• That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together by Joanne Lipman, William Morrow (Management & Workplace Culture
• This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See by Seth Godin, Portfolio (Marketing & Sales
• Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future by Lucie Greene, Counterpoint (Current Events & Public Affairs)
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, Seal Press (Personal Development & Human Behavior)
• Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas, Knopf (Big Ideas & New Perspectives)

The previous winners of the Business Book of the Year have been:

• 2017: Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein
• 2016: What Works: Gender Equality By Design by Iris Bohnet
• 2015: How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery by Kevin Ashton
• 2014: The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World’s Most Important Company by Michael S. Malone
• 2013: Springboard: Launching Your Personal Search for SUCCESS by G. Richard Shell
• 2012: The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni
• 2011: Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins & Morten T. Hansen
• 2010: Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
• 2009: Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—And Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin
• 2008: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
• 2007: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

We will announce this year’s overall winner of the 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year at our annual awards ceremony and business book industry celebration in New York City on Thursday, January 17th. Follow along here or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Keen Thinker, for updates.