business book reviews

The 29 best business books to read in 2023, ranked by Goodreads members

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• Entrepreneurs can learn business concepts, tactics, and advice from books. 
• The best business reads include self-help, leadership, and psychology books.
• We turned to Goodreads to rank the best business books to read in 2023.

Whether you're a small business owner , entrepreneur, or just someone seeking useful career advice, there are many great books to turn to. Business books can provide psychological concepts for better negotiation skills , personal anecdotes to avoid repeating mistakes, or self-help tips to improve productivity. 

To find the best ones, we turned to Goodreads, the world's largest platform to rate and review books. Among the highest ranking are classics like " How to Win Friends and Influence People " as well as newer memoirs like " Shoe Dog ." From fascinating leadership reads to analytical management books, here are the best business books to read in 2023.

29. "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" by David Allen

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.29

This productivity book is a necessary business read as it teaches readers how to transform the way we work by de-stressing and organizing. Believing that a relaxed mind is most effective, David Allen presents realistic productivity systems and the ways in which we can implement them.

28. "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.29

Originally published in 1949 by the "father of value investing," "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham delivers realistic financial advice for individuals and businesses looking to grow their wealth. Far from principles that guarantee you'll become a millionaire, this book encourages readers to create practical goals and find success in any size a victory.

27. "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" by Sheryl Sandberg

Available on Amazon and Bookshop from $12.60

"Lean In" sparked global conversation after its publication in 2013 because of its honesty about the experiences of women in business. This book encourages women to be voracious, courageous, and strong-willed at work in order to not only help themselves but improve the future for upcoming businesswomen.

26. "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.94

With over one million ratings on Goodreads, this book is a biography of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. Walter Isaacson conducted more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs and 100 interviews with family, friends, and colleagues to create an all-encompassing portrait of a man who revolutionized technology with his inventiveness.

25. "The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business" by Josh Kaufman

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.99

Written for those who cannot or don't intend to go to business school, "The Personal MBA" outlines the fundamental principles of business for people at any stage of their business career. With lessons on sales, marketing, negotiation, and strategy, this self-help read offers an overview of many business school topics to help readers master the MBA basics. 

24. "Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration" by Ed Catmull

Available on Amazon and Bookshop from $13.69

Drawing on his experiences as a co-founder and president of Pixar Animation, Ed Catmull unveils some deeply ingrained processes and beliefs that have made Pixar so successful. His teams' philosophies can be applied to any business, creatively driven or otherwise.

23. "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Patrick Lencioni

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15

In this leadership fable, a CEO attempts to unite a team under high stakes discovering along the way why even the greatest teams struggle. If this style of business book interests you, Patrick Lencioni also wrote "The Five Temptations of a CEO" and "Death by Meeting" in the same form.

22. "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.99

Brothers Chip and Dan Heath use different business theories in this book to analyze the "stickiness" of an idea, or what makes some ideas work so well. They draw from successful and unsuccessful business ventures to help readers discover the principles within great ideas and therefore how to make their own ideas stick.

21. "Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant" by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

Available at Bookshop , from $18.59

In this business book, authors Kim and Mauborgne assert that lasting success does not come from fighting direct competition in a small pool but rather from creating "blue oceans" or untapped market spaces where new growth can bloom. They outline strategic principles and tools that readers can translate to nearly any market and master their niche. 

20. "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies" by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.49

Over a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, authors Collins and Porras studied the habits of 18 successful and long-lasting companies in direct comparison to their competitors. "Built to Last" lays out the tactics, habits, and ideas from these successful businesses that managers and entrepreneurs can apply to their own and inspire new success. 

19. "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.99

"Influence" is a psychology book about persuasion, dubbed a business read by Goodreads reviewers for its usefulness in management, marketing, and communications. This book teaches the readers six principles of persuasion, how to apply them, and how to know when they're being used against you.

18. "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" by Charles Duhigg

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.99

"The Power of Habit" argues that habits are the key to success in business, communities, and our personal lives. Through an analysis of human nature and examples from successful business people, athletes, and leaders, this book demonstrates how mastering powerful habits can change our entire lives. 

17. "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.99

"Freakonomics" is a fascinating read that questions the ways we've conventionally understood the world functions and offers a way to question what we've assumed is conventional wisdom. Loved for its thought-provoking nature, this economics and business read separates morality from economics and asserts such as a system of incentives to get people what they want or need. 

16. "Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike" by Phil Knight

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.08

"Shoe Dog" might be a memoir, but Goodreads users love Phil Knight's focus on his success in business as he grew his company from $50 into the Nike empire. Knight's story brings readers into the details of the company's growth, the challenges he faced as a leader, and the breakthroughs he experienced.

15. "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail" by Clayton M. Christensen

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.71

Malcolm Gladwell is a bestselling author best known for his nonfiction writing on psychology and sociology. In this psychology read, Gladwell analyses the "outliers" of the world — the best, the highest-achieving, the most famous people — to find what made them different and, thus, so successful. If you enjoy Gladwell's clear writing style and fascinating perspectives, you can check out his other popular books here . 

14. "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It" by Chris Voss

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.97

Written by a former international hostage negotiator for the FBI, this business book transforms the psychology of interrogation into civilian-applicable negotiation tactics, such as skills you might need while discussing a raise or navigating interpersonal conflict . Using emotional and behavioral sciences, this book is about gaining trust, discovering motives, and understanding those around us. Voss also teaches a MasterClass on the same subject .

13. "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.99

12. "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It" by Michael E. Gerber

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.29

The "e-myth" is the entrepreneurial idea that people who start small businesses are entrepreneurs and anyone with technical business understanding can start one. In this book, Michael E. Gerber analyzes assumptions, expectations, and misconceptions around starting a small business in the hope that readers can succeed on their own.

11. "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don't" by James C. Collins

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.49

In this business book, James C. Collins analyzes what makes a company "great" and how good companies can achieve enduring success. He used a team of 21 researchers to develop his theories and back each principle with grounded statistics.

10. "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcolm Gladwell

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.99

With over 735,000 ratings, "The Tipping Point" is a business favorite of Goodreads members, helping readers understand when a good idea crosses the threshold to becoming a business or a product. Beloved for Malcolm Gladwell's concise and digestible writing style, this book uses sociology to analyze the personality types of business leaders, indicators that past trends would become massive, and interviews with great business people to find the traits of the next great idea.

9. "Rework" by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

"Rework" strives to be different from any other business book on the market by taking traditional business advice and analyzing how to work smarter for faster results. It approaches standard business principles from a new angle, highlighting the typical challenges and helping readers stay one step ahead.

8. "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyoskai

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.82

Robert T. Kiyosaki is a millionaire businessman who grew up with two dads — his own, and his best friend's father (the "rich dad"). In this business and finance book, Kiyosaki explains how his two dads shaped his view of money and investing and gives the readers advice on how to invest and grow their money.

7. "The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers" by Ben Horowitz

Filled with personal anecdotes and advice "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" analyzes some of the most challenging issues entrepreneurs may face while building a business such as firing a friend, managing bad employees, deciding whether or not to sell your company, and managing your own mind as a leader. Readers love this book for Horowitz's brutal honesty and his perspective as he writes to current and future CEOs as a CEO himself. 

6. "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change" by Stephen R. Covey

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.26

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is a self-help book that uses seven principles to help readers streamline their personal and professional lives toward success. Inspirational and practical, these habits use psychological reasoning to determine our goals, focus on reaching them, and maintain positive thinking throughout the process.

5. "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action" by Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek is an inspirational speaker whose book encourages leaders to articulate why their business exists, their idea is great, and their movement is necessary. When people lead with "why," it is easier to lead and inspire.

4. "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.99

Based on a series of lectures given at Princeton University on entrepreneurship, Timothy Ferriss' business book is essentially about how to life-hack your business and when it is the appropriate time to make these moves, from outsourcing certain tasks to implementing new management principles. He also encourages entrepreneurs to break out of the 9-5 mold in order to become more well-rounded business people.

3. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

Available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.60

This 1936 psychology book has become a business staple, necessary in understanding how to lead or manage a team. With principles on how to get people to like you, win people to your way of thinking, and change people without making them hate you, this popular book has sold over 15 million copies. 

2. "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" by Eric Ries

Written to help more budding entrepreneurs create successful start-ups, "The Lean Startup" introduces a clear and dynamic approach for businesses to test, analyze, and continually adapt their vision and goals rather than fail by sticking to an original business plan. Both inspirational and validating for readers, this business book demonstrates first why conventional business plans can cause start-ups to fail and then offers advice and wisdom that can be applied to nearly any new business.  

1. "Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future" by Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel is a billionaire investor and entrepreneur, a co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund. In "Zero to One," he aims to help readers find unique opportunities for progress in an already advanced business space, incorporating his optimistic view of future entrepreneurs' ideas.

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Nonfiction Books » Best Nonfiction Books of 2023

The best business books of 2023: the financial times business book of the year award, recommended by andrew hill.

WINNER OF THE 2023 FT BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive by Amy Edmondson

If you like nonfiction books that will get you up to speed with what's going on in the world, the Financial Times annual book prize is a great place to start. If you run a business, one or two useful books also feature. Andrew Hill , the newspaper's senior business writer, talks us through the books that made the 2023 shortlist, from cobalt extraction in the Congo to how to manage the AI genie that's out of the bottle and coming towards us at speed.

Interview by Sophie Roell , Editor

Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway

How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between by Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara

The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma by Michael Bhaskar & Mustafa Suleyman

1 Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway

2 right kind of wrong: why learning to fail can teach us to thrive by amy edmondson, 3 how big things get done: the surprising factors that determine the fate of every project, from home renovations to space exploration and everything in between by bent flyvbjerg & dan gardner, 4 elon musk by walter isaacson, 5 cobalt red: how the blood of the congo powers our lives by siddharth kara, 6 the coming wave: technology, power, and the twenty-first century's greatest dilemma by michael bhaskar & mustafa suleyman.

B efore we get to the books, tell me a bit about this year’s Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award. What were the highlights of 2023?

For only the second time that I can remember, we had a book that the judges called in and put directly onto the shortlist. This was Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk. As the person who administers the prize, I would want it to be as rare as once a decade, because you want books to have gone through the longlist process. Isaacson’s book muscled its way onto the shortlist on the basis of being the newsy new book. That’s unusual but doesn’t say anything about its prospects to come out as a winner.

It’s an interesting shortlist because it divides into three pairs. One is natural resources and the environment – not so much climate change (although there was a climate change book on the longlist). Two of the books are about extractive natural resources. Those are Material World by Ed Conway and Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara.

Another theme was technology and AI . I didn’t think we would have any books about generative AI, because the big ChatGPT breakthrough that seemed to revolutionise everything didn’t happen until November of last year. But we had a couple of books on the longlist and Mustafa Suleyman’s The Coming Wave , which is about technology advances, got through to the shortlist. A lot of books on the longlist addressed the effect of technology and automation on jobs and people. I guess one could put the Musk biography into that category because of the various technologies that he’s worked on.

Let’s go through the books individually. Shall we start with Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future , by Ed Conway ? I remember reading the beginning and being quite struck by it. He is watching gold being extracted and thinking, ‘I wonder whether I really needed that gold wedding ring, now that I’ve seen what has to happen in order for it to come into existence.’

What I like about this book—and he makes this point very clearly—is that this is stuff that you can see. Ed Conway is a journalist for Sky News and of course TV journalists are always looking for things that can be filmed. Our review of the book pointed out that it’s a shame that there aren’t more pictures in it. He’s trying to paint a picture, and you want to see what he’s seeing, which is the extraordinary effort that goes into mining the six vital materials that he focuses on: salt, sand, iron, copper, oil, and lithium .

Let’s turn to Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive , by Amy Edmondson, one of the two books about failing you mentioned. In recent years, I’ve read quite a bit about failure being good for you. What does this book bring to the picture?

Amy Edmondson is a very distinguished Harvard researcher, best known for having explored the concept of ‘psychological safety.’ This is the idea, which she pursues further in this book, that you can only advance and become more successful if you are in an environment where you can safely admit—and indeed call out—errors and mistakes being made.

She did a lot of work, which recurs in this book, in the healthcare sector. That’s where she started and where she discovered—slightly to her astonishment—that it wasn’t the teams that were making the fewest errors that were the most successful. It was the teams that were admitting to the most errors, because they were then able to correct and work together to improve.

That is the fundamental underpinning of her research and that of others in this area. She bases this on a fundamental point: that if we’re not able to admit to failure and to approach failure in a constructive way, we’re never going to want to take any risks. We’re not going to be able to make the smarter and more adventurous decisions that lead us to advance.

I find it a very compelling hypothesis, well backed up by research and interesting tales – everything from the Columbia shuttle disaster to open heart surgery – to show how we reached the level of sophistication that we now have in some of these vital areas. I think it’s an important book from an important researcher.

So it’s not so much a self-help book about me, personally, failing in my daily life and learning from that — it’s more about society at large?

Let’s go on to the other failure book: How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration , by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. That sounds exciting, it’d be nice to get some big things done right now.

This book is exceptionally interesting. Bent Flyvbjerg is an Oxford-based Danish academic. He is the main writer and it’s mainly based on his work, with Dan Gardner as co-author. Flyvbjerg’s work is to look at megaprojects and he poses a law of megaprojects: that they generally go over budget and over time and why this is bad.

In the current circumstances, in the UK, there’s HS2, which Flyvbjerg has written about and talked about, but there are lots of great examples. He’s very fond of the Sydney Opera House debacle because it was a Danish architect who designed it. He points out that it essentially deprived the world of this architect’s future work because he was in such despair at the portrayal of the Sydney Opera House as a failure that he didn’t design anything much after that.

Let’s move on to Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. I’m not generally drawn to biographies of tech gurus, but I read Isaacson’s book about Steve Jobs to prepare for a Five Books interview, and I was blown away by it. I was expecting great things from his Elon Musk book, but the reviews have been mixed. What’s your impression of the book?

The first thing to mention is that this is the second Elon Musk biography that has been on the short or longlist of the award. A few years ago, Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk biography, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future , was on the longlist. Everybody thought it was great, but obviously Elon Musk was in an earlier phase of his rise to multibillionaire-dom.

This book is at a later phase, but it still isn’t done, as the book makes clear. Inevitably, you’ve got to put a full stop somewhere. The Steve Jobs biography came out just after Jobs had died, so, in a sense, there was a roundness to it that any Musk biography that comes out now isn’t going to achieve.

Isaacson sat at the feet of Musk – literally, in the same room as Musk – for two or three years, I think. The whole second half of the book is about the last three years, so it’s very detailed. It’s very much reporting. He doesn’t step back except right at the end, and then to make a rather general point about how you need the good and the bad in order to have a genius (which was similar to the Steve Jobs conclusion, if I remember correctly). Isaacson doesn’t say, ‘I’m now going to make a judgment on what’s happened.’ It’s very much an account of being with this extraordinary, tempestuous entrepreneur.

From that point of view, it fits into the historical record. Some of the things that have happened in the last few years, including the Twitter takeover, SpaceX, and Tesla — all the events that we’ve read about — are recounted from the Musk point of view in quite a lot of detail.

It’s a long book with very short chapters. It’s quite punchy, in that sense of ‘OK now we’re moving on’ which gives you a bit of an impression of what it must be like to live with or work with Elon Musk. But it doesn’t then step back and say how significant it is.

And, surprisingly, as somebody else pointed out recently, it’s not much about his businesses, as you might expect. There’s not a whole lot about ‘how has he managed to build this?’ It’s very much about the entrepreneurial leader.

Is there anything about Elon Musk that perhaps we don’t know that we’ll learn from this biography?

I think one of the revelations is that he has more children than we thought.

Putting my management hat back on, you get a bit more of an impression of this dynamo who is driving everything. One thing that stuck with me was this idea that he’ll take what had been, until Musk came along, a bureaucratic process, like launching a rocket, a lot of which is to do with safety and protocols, and he will tear it down to its bare essentials.

Let’s turn to Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara. At the beginning of the book, the author goes to the mining region of Katanga. It’s like scenes from the 19th century, with people working for very little money in horrible conditions.

Yes. I’ve been reading it on an iPad and it does make you put down your iPad and think, ‘What is in this thing that I am reading from?’ It’s about cobalt, a vital raw material and one that probably could have made it into Ed Conway’s Material World as a seventh critical material. It’s vital, particularly for rechargeable batteries, and therefore hugely in demand.

Siddharth Kara goes, literally, deep into the holes being dug, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, by artisan miners who are pulling rocks from the ground in the most extraordinary circumstances. Kara interviews the workers and the traders who are buying it and, he alleges, putting it into the formal supply chain. There’s a shocking moment where he just throws in that none of them has ever held a mobile phone. And yet, they’re at the very end of the chain that leads to our iPhones and our electric cars.

It is a shocking account, and he sets it in the context of the terrible history of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo – previously Zaire, and before that the Belgian Congo – as a place that has been exploited, from the word go, for these minerals, which could have made its people wealthy and prosperous and well looked after.

It’s a shocking indictment and his underlying polemical point is that there are big companies who are whitewashing this out of the record, who are claiming to have a clean supply chain. His essential contention is there is no such thing as clean cobalt.

What’s upsetting is that this is a country of nearly 100 million people.

Yes, and his point is that at the top end – the bottom end, ethically speaking – of the DRC, there are people making out like bandits. There are literal bandits in this book, and there are also politicians who are creaming off an extraordinary amount of money.

Let’s turn to the final book on the 2023 Business Book of the Year shortlist: The Coming Wave: AI, Power and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma  by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar. Tell me about this book.

The Coming Wave is in that category of books I mentioned about technological progress and its consequences. It sets the advances in automation and in synthetic biology (e.g., gene splicing and DNA printing) and in quantum computing —these current waves of technology—in the context of what happened with past waves, including the Industrial Revolution , and the Luddites, who, bizarrely, crop up in three of this year’s longlisted books. (One of the longlisted books that didn’t make the shortlist – Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech , by Brian Merchant – is actually about the Luddites).

In the context of the history of technological advances, it’s asking, ‘What can we expect?’ It poses the question: ‘Can we contain the bad consequences of fast-moving technological advance and if so how?’

The main author, Mustafa Suleyman, who worked with Michael Bhaskar on the book, is a co-founder of DeepMind, which is now owned by Google. Google and DeepMind are at the heart of some of the technologies mentioned here that are being developed.

In the book, he points out that he started out thinking he was going to write a very optimistic book, as a techno optimist himself, and became more pessimistic. It ends with the anguished idea that we’re trying to contain the uncontainable. Suleyman thinks containment is the way to approach this. It can’t be regulated away: there isn’t enough that any individual regulator can do. But he lays out some ways in which he thinks that the potentially lethal consequences of some of these advances might be contained and channelled.

He makes a lot out of the positive aspects as well, all the amazing things that you can do by combining AI, quantum computing, and synthetic biology, in terms of preserving and extending life, and making life better.

But the overall impression I got from the book is that it’s a warning. We’ve got to work now to think about ways in which we can at least impose some guardrails that prevent this becoming a disaster for humanity. And that, as I say, is slightly echoed in some of the other books that made it to the longlist this year.

What is the worst-case scenario, then, if everything goes wrong, and we don’t manage to put in those guardrails?

There are various ways in which he thinks we could get this wrong. In AI, there’s the possibility that you end up with self-generating solutions that turn out not to be beneficial for wider humanity, a race to the bottom between AI-fuelled machines or the risk of weaponisation – it could be literal weaponisation – of these tools to go after somebody else or another state. Part of his warning is that accidents happen when humans are involved in doing this stuff. We do not necessarily get things right all the time, which brings us back to our books on failure.

What he’s suggesting is that you need to have some context around this, involving regulators and governments and some of the private sector actors working together to prevent those things happening, or, at least, to have a game plan for if they do. I didn’t come out of this book whistling a happy tune, but it’s a contribution to the way in which that worst-case scenario can be mitigated or even avoided.

November 30, 2023

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Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill is senior business writer at the Financial Times, consulting editor of FT Live and organiser of the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award . He is a former management editor, City editor, financial editor and comment and analysis editor. Andrew was named Business Commentator of the Year at the 2016 Comment Awards and Commentator of the Year at the 2009 Business Journalist of the Year Awards, where he also received a Decade of Excellence award. He is the author of Ruskinland: How John Ruskin Shapes Our World .

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21 Top Business Books to Read

By: Angela Robinson | Updated: November 02, 2023

You found our list of the best business books .

Business books are practical guides to building and running successful enterprises. The genre is diverse and offers advice to businesses of all sizes and types. These books cover topics like negotiation, management, profit, and productivity. The purpose is to teach entrepreneurs effective habits and best practices that result in successful ventures.

The genre also includes business strategy books , small business books , startup books , CEO books , and HR books .

This list contains:

• motivational business books
• top books on business for beginners
• best business books by women
• self-help books for business owners
• business biographies

Here we go!

List of business books

From classic bestsellers to new releases, here is a collection of must-read business books for current and aspiring entrepreneurs.

1. The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

The Infinite Game is among the greatest motivational business books. Business is an endless game and a series of constantly evolving challenges. Simon Sinek emphasizes the importance of adopting an infinite mindset in playing the long game. The book touches on topics such as team trust, the role of rivals in professional development, and innovative flexibility. This work is a manifesto of how to operate with no permanent endpoint. The Infinite Game stresses evolution over final solutions and teaches leaders to plan for the long term. The easy-to-read and enjoyable prose makes the book an equally engrossing and informative read.

Notable Quote: “When leaders are willing to prioritize trust over performance, performance almost always follows.”

Buy The Infinite Game .

2. Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead by Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong by Kristen Hadeed

Permission to Screw Up is one of the best recent business books by women. While many women writers target aspiring female entrepreneurs, Kristen Hadeed addresses topics relevant to business hopefuls of any gender. The book traces Hadeed’s journey in building her company, Student Maid. Part memoir and part self-help book, the story recounts the missteps and mistakes made in the journey of building the business. Permission to Screw Up teaches leaders to embrace and flip the narrative on failure and treat setbacks as learning moments. This book empowers entrepreneurs to fail forward for the sake of experimentation, and values progress over perfection. Haddeed admits her mess ups to help other entrepreneurs avoid the same mistakes and to illustrate the point that you do not need to make the right call 100% of the time to succeed.

Notable Quote: “Good leaders know that their people will only truly thrive not when they are pushed to be perfect but when they are encouraged to be their natural best.”

Buy Permission to Screw Up , and check out more leadership books .

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3. The Common Path to Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment by John Lee Dumas

Inspired by John Lee Dumas’s hit podcast, The Common Path to Uncommon Success draws on hundreds of interviews with industry leaders. The book seeks out patterns in top performer’s methods and presents a 17-step framework to replicate the results of extraordinary entrepreneurs. Chapters center around practices like narrowing down a niche, choosing a mentor, and drafting a content plan. The Common Path to Uncommon Success answers aspiring entrepreneurs’ most pressing questions and lays out the basics in an easy-to-follow format.

Notable Quote: “Everyone is not your customer. In fact, most people are not your customer. There are billions of people in the world. Ninety-nine percent of humans will never know you exist, let alone consume your content and be impacted by your message. And that’s ok.”

Buy The Common Path to Uncommon Success .

4. Future Proofing You: Twelve Truths for Creating Opportunity, Maximizing Wealth, and Controlling your Destiny in an Uncertain World by Jay Samit

Future Proofing You lays out instructions for building resilient businesses and achieving lasting success in an age of constant disruption. Digital media innovator and former Deloitte executive Jay Samit shares twelve foundational principles that serve as a basis for safeguarding against the unknown. For instance, adopting a growth mindset, using fear to fuel action, and working towards profitable sustainability. The book teaches readers how to thrive personally and professionally in a world that can change at any given moment. Future Proofing You is a guide for outlasting the unknown and achieving longevity in an era of unending reinvention.

Notable Quote: “The only requirements for becoming Future Proof are insight and perseverance (…everything else can be hired.)”

Buy Future Proofing You .

5. Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Zero to One is an exploration of innovation. The book examines ways to discover the unheard-of and unexpected and perhaps even form new industries. Peter Thiel steers readers away from technical stagnation and conformity in favor of out-of-the-box thinking. Zero to One captures the startup spirit and explains how to launch businesses that really do change the course of humanity and shape the world.

Notable Quote: “The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.”

Buy Zero to One .

6. Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz

Profit First is one of the more practical books on business for beginners. Achieving and maintaining positive cash flow is one of the greatest challenges for emerging businesses. Profit First teaches readers how to transform ventures from money-suckers to money-makers. The book champions prioritizing profit and limiting expenses and outlines practical strategies for balancing budgets and keeping the business out of debt. By providing assessment tools, step-by-step processes, and case studies this book shares practical tips for running financially healthy businesses.

Notable Quote: “All revenue is not the same. If you remove your worst, unprofitable clients and the now-unnecessary costs associated with them, you will see a jump in profitability and a reduction in stress, often within a few weeks. Equally important, you will have more time to pursue and clone your best clients.”

Buy Profit First .

7.People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts by Robert Bolton

The business world revolves around relationships, meaning success requires excellent interpersonal skills. People Skills is a guide for navigating everyday interactions and avoiding or settling disputes and disagreements. The book explores basic human psychology and suggests ways to stand up for yourself and meet your needs without offending or alienating others. The author demonstrates how to read body language, pick up emotional cues, and use conversation skills to get what you want without ruining relationships. People Skills offers a crash course in communication and emotional intelligence and serves as a basis for building strong coworker or client bonds.

Notable Quote: “The law of change says, “Things do not stay the same. If they don’t get better, they get worse.”

Buy People Skills .

8. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber

The E-Myth Revisited is one of the better self-help books for business owners. The work deconstructs the misconceptions that all small business owners automatically become entrepreneurs and that technical prowess alone is sufficient to run a business. Michael E. Gerber challenges the popular narratives about entrepreneurship and explains the requirements for launching, growing, and maintaining a successful venture. The book presents strategies for marketing, managing, business development, and more. The E-Myth Revisited defines the job of the business owner in clear terms and outlines the necessary steps for success.

Notable Quote: “Most salespeople think that selling is “closing.” It isn’t. Selling is opening.”

Buy The E-Myth Revisited .

9. 12 Months to $1 Million: How to Pick a Winning Product, Build a Real Business, and Become a Seven-Figure Entrepreneur by Ryan Daniel Moran

12 Months to $1 Million is an instruction manual for launching a lucrative organization within a year. Beyond that, the book is also a practical guide for what it takes to run a good business, including grit, determination, good judgment, and prudent planning. Ryan Daniel Moran breaks the process of founding a seven-figure startup into three phrases: The Grind, The Growth, and The Gold. The book recommends actions and focus points for each stage. These simplified systems make the process of launching a profitable startup seem less overwhelming and more achievable.

Notable Quote: “Some people resist marketplace change because their primary income stream feels under threat. At the same time, those changes open up new opportunities.”

Buy 12 Months to $1 Million .

10. High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove

High Output Management focuses on management techniques and best practices. Andrew S. Grove led teams and initiatives in some of the biggest tech companies in the US for over twenty years, and he brings that experience to this guide. The book covers competencies like leading meetings, making decisions, planning workflows, training, and giving feedback. Each chapter contains examples and explanations for key leadership techniques to maximize output. High Output Management teaches leaders to create efficient systems and get the maximum performance out of employees.

Notable Quote: “Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos.”

Buy High Output Management , and check out more management books .

11. Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman

Traction is a guide for gaining momentum in business ventures. Many entrepreneurs spend the bulk of their time putting out fires and dealing with issues like employee mediation, insufficient funding, production hiccups, or slower-than-expected growth. This resource shows leaders how to make progress on goals. The book outlines six key components of entrepreneurship: people, vision, data, issues, traction, and process. By properly balancing these elements, organizations can expand upon foundations and make headway on goals. Traction is the ultimate handbook for growing young companies.

Notable Quote:“If you’re truly going to commit to building a great company, a strong leadership team, and getting the right people in the right seats, you must prepare for change on your leadership team.”

Buy Traction .

12. Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger

Liftoff is one of the hottest new business biographies. The book charts the early days of SpaceX, tracing the company’s journey starting from the inception and the initial Falcon 1 rocket launches. Before SpaceX became a cosmic juggernaut it was a scrappy startup. This history traces the journey from the days before Elon Musk was a household name, illuminating the route the company took to transform their mission from a pipedream to a leading aerospace organization. Liftoff gives a behind the scenes look into the beginnings of one of the most intriguing companies of the modern age.

Notable Quote: “To understand SpaceX, where it aspires to go, and why it just might succeed, one must voyage back to the Falcon 1 rocket and dig up the roots. The seeds for everything SpaceX has grown into today were planted during the early days of the Falcon 1 program by Musk.”

Buy Liftoff .

13. Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products (Silicon Valley Product Group) by Marty Cagan

Empowered challenges the idea that business success hinges on attracting top talent. The book claims that the true key to prevailing is bringing out the best in the majority of the staff. This guide advocates for utilizing all employees, building great teams, and fostering a culture of creativity and innovation. The book explores topics like coaching, imposter syndrome, time management, collaboration, product design, and team development. Empowered insists that to design the next great product, employees do not have to be geniuses, they just need the right motivation.

Notable Quote: “The companion to empowerment is accountability.”

Buy Empowered .

14. Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, et al.

Play Bigger is a manifesto on category design, the act of creating demand for a new concept. The book explores business case studies and inventions throughout history to discover how trailblazers created sensations. The authors lay out strategies and steps for launching new industries and remaining on top as competitors enter the market. Play Bigger is a handbook for becoming “category kings” through the act of being the first and staying the best.

Notable Quote: “The story about your business is more important than the facts about your business. Sound outrageous? Maybe, but the brain research proves it’s true. People relate to and remember stories—even people who make a living analyzing facts.”

Buy Play Bigger .

15. Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell by John Warrillow

Many of the top business books focus on building a lasting business. However, not every founder dreams of sustaining an organization long term. Some entrepreneurs launch businesses to turn a profit, while others do not want to commit to a single idea for a lifetime. This book focuses on launching and growing a business with the intent of selling. Built to Sell teaches leaders how to run an organization during the growth stage and find the right purchaser once the business matures. The book outlines common mistakes owners make when selling and mentions steps and tips to avoid a prolonged exit. Built to Sell is the perfect book for temporary entrepreneurs.

Notable Quote: “Don’t be afraid to say no to projects. Prove that you’re serious about specialization by turning down work that falls outside your area of expertise. The more people you say no to, the more referrals you’ll get to people who need your product or service.”

Buy Built to Sell .

16. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

The Hard Thing About Hard Things is one of the most popular books on business. Ben Horowitz lays bare the struggles of entrepreneurship in an honest account of what it takes to run a startup. The book explores the realities of holding ultimate accountability, being the deciding factor on business choices, and leading through uncertainty. Chapters address challenging scenarios like conducting layoffs and demotions, hiring executives, eliminating office politics, and evaluating yourself as a CEO. The Hard Thing About Hard Things offers battle strategies for every trial of entrepreneurship.

Notable Quote: “Most business relationships either become too tense to tolerate or not tense enough to be productive after a while. Either people challenge each other to the point where they don’t like each other or they become complacent about each other’s feedback and no longer benefit from the relationship.”

Buy The Hard Thing About Hard Things , and check out more entrepreneurial books .

17. Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience by Laura Morgan Roberts, Anthony J. Mayo, and David A. Thomas

Race, Work, and Leadership is one of the best business books. This work chronicles the experience of Black professionals in recent and present corporate culture. The book consists of essays that examine the ways race affects leadership opportunities and professional development. Race, Work, and Leadership explores the history of race and work within the US, analyzes the current climate, and calls for continued progress and increased organizational accountability. This book is the ultimate primer on race and industry, as well as a handbook for navigating the corporate world as a person of color.

Notable Quote: “What happens in society spills over because organizations are in society, not apart from it. Employees do not leave their race or racial beliefs at the entrance when they enter the workplace.”

Buy Race, Work, and Leadership , and check out more books about diversity and inclusion in the workplace .

18. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

The Purple Cow teaches businesses how to stand out in competitive markets through the power of the wow factor. Marketing master Seth Godin preaches that in order to find success, companies must find and capitalize on a remarkable quality. In an internet age where consumers can instantly compare thousands of items, it is not enough to merely create a good product. Offerings must be extraordinary enough to convince folks to try them, and impressive enough to inspire repeat purchases. The Purple Cow suggests designing products with marketing in mind and provides strategies for determining what customers want and getting the message to the right audiences.

Notable Quote: “If a product’s future is unlikely to be remarkable – if you can’t imagine a future in which people are once again fascinated by your product – it’s time to realize that the game has changed. Instead of investing in a dying product, take profits and reinvest them in building something new.”

Buy Purple Cow , and check out more marketing books.

19. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz

Never Split the Difference presents a masterclass in negotiation. The book was co-written by an FBI hostage negotiator with years of experience navigating high stakes situations. The author shares techniques for keeping calm, de-escalating emotions, and gaining leverage in tough circumstances. The skills the author gained in the field can serve professionals in boardrooms and offices, or in personal interactions. Never Split the Difference is full of extraordinary first-person accounts and practical advice that teach readers how to bargain effectively and achieve favorable results in the most dire situations.

Notable Quote: “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”

Buy Never Split the Difference .

20. Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

Principles is one of the bestselling business books of all time. In this autobiographical work, hedge fund legend Ray Dalio shares the greatest pieces of business advice he amassed throughout his long and outstanding career. Dalio passes on life lessons and personal philosophies through a candid, no-nonsense tone. The book is a collection of memoirs and mantras that inspired the likes of Bill Gates and Tony Robbins.

Notable Quote: “Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.”

Buy Principles: Life and Work .

21. Business Made Simple: 60 Days to Master Leadership, Sales, Marketing, Execution, Management, Personal Productivity and More by Donald Miller

One of the hottest recent business bestsellers, this book is a crash course in management and business mastery. Business Made Simple aims to condense an MBA education into a single, simple volume. Written in easy to understand language, the book breaks down the basics of entrepreneurship into digestible parts. Donald Miller addresses topics like personal productivity, character, messaging, execution, and sales. Business Made Simple is an encyclopedia of business best practices and actionable advice.

Notable Quote: “What’s the most important thing you can do today? If you can answer that question, morning after morning, you are in an elite group of professionals.”

Buy Business Made Simple .

Business is busy, and reading tends to be way down the list of priorities. However, books on business keep professionals informed. Devoting a few hours to reading these works can help entrepreneurs avoid mistakes and pitfalls that take time away from growing and building the business.

This extensive genre covers a wide range of topics, from leadership habits and styles, to strategy and profit, to culture and inclusion. Entrepreneurs must have such a wide range of knowledge, that experience alone is often not enough to prepare leaders for high-ranking roles. Reading the best books on business management provides a strong foundation of knowledge to build upon. Not to mention, these works give readers up-close-access to the insights of some of the greatest minds in industry who are eager to pass on valuable advice to the next generations of business leaders.

For more reading, check out these lists of books on product design , project management books , office management books and business books for women .

We also have a list of the best customer service books , list of books on negotiation and list of franchise books .

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FAQ: Business books

Here are answers to common questions about business books.

What are business books?

Business books are guides for creating companies and launching successful ventures. These works cover topics such as innovation, entrepreneurship, scaling, management, and marketing. The genre includes categories like business memoirs and histories, handbooks, guides, and motivational manifestos. Many of these nonfiction works are written by entrepreneurial legends and industry thought leaders. The purpose of these books is to make readers more business savvy.

What are some good business books for beginners?

Some good business books for beginners include Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, and Business Made Simple by Donald Miller.

What are the best books on business for leaders?

Some of the best business books for leaders include Empowered by Marty Cagan, High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove, People Skills by Robert Bolton, and Principles by Ray Dalio.

Are business books worth reading?

Business books are worth reading because these works can illuminate common errors and pitfalls and help leaders avoid obvious missteps.

Author: Angela Robinson

Marketing Coordinator at teambuilding.com. Angela has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and worked as a community manager with Yelp to plan events for businesses.

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Marketing Coordinator at teambuilding.com.

Angela has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and worked as a community manager with Yelp to plan events for businesses.

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30 Best Business Book Review Blogs & Websites

• Durmonski.com
• BobbyPowers.net
• The Extraordinary Business Book Club
• Financial Times » Business books
• Brenda Humphreys Blog » Business
• Blogging on Business » Book Reviews
• The Enlightened Economist
• Strategy+Business » Business Books
• 15 Minute Business Books Blog
• Greatest Hits Blog
• Charelle Griffith » Entrepreneurship & Business Books
• Small Business Trends » Business Books Reviews
• My Business Book Club Blog
• Small Business Labs » Book Reviews
• The Book Review Station » Non-fiction (Business and Other Stuff)
• Kirkus Reviews » Business
• Inc.com » Business Books
• LoveReading » Business and Management
• BookTrib » Business Books
• Hooked To Books » Business
• 3 Entrepreneur Essential
• Summaries Blog
• The Book Blogger List » Business / Fianance
• Accessory To Success Blog
• Business Book Spoilers » Business Book Review
• Climb Book Blog

Business Book Review Bloggers

• Business Book Review Newsletter

Business Book Review Blogs

Here are 30 Best Business Book Review Blogs you should follow in 2024

1. Durmonski.com

2. BobbyPowers.net

3. The Extraordinary Business Book Club

4. Financial Times » Business books

5. Brenda Humphreys Blog » Business

6. Blogging on Business » Book Reviews

7. The Enlightened Economist

8. Strategy+Business » Business Books

9. 15 Minute Business Books Blog

10. Greatest Hits Blog

11. Charelle Griffith » Entrepreneurship & Business Books

12. Small Business Trends » Business Books Reviews

13. My Business Book Club Blog

14. Small Business Labs » Book Reviews

15. The Book Review Station » Non-fiction (Business and Other Stuff)

16. Kirkus Reviews » Business

17. Inc.com » Business Books

18. LoveReading » Business and Management

19. BookTrib » Business Books

20. Hooked To Books » Business

21. 3 Entrepreneur Essential

22. Summaries Blog

23. The Book Blogger List » Business / Fianance

24. Accessory To Success Blog

25. Business Book Spoilers » Business Book Review

26. Climb Book Blog

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Blog – Posted on Friday, Mar 29

17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.

It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?

As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!

In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.

Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

What must a book review contain?

Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)

In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:

• A review will offer a concise plot summary of the book. 
• A book review will offer an evaluation of the work. 
• A book review will offer a recommendation for the audience. 

If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.

Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.

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Book review examples for fiction books

Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .

That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.

Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :

An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.

His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.

This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.

Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:

YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.

I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]

The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :

Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.

The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.

Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]

Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :

In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.

As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.

This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.

Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :

I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.

Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim.  To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :

♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.

In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.

♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]

The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :

Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.

Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.

“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]

James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!

This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.

The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.

Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :

This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.

Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.

Examples of genre fiction book reviews

Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:

4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.

I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.

The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.

I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.

Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:

“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”

Holy hell, what did I just read??

➽ A fantasy military school

➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history

➽ Shamans and gods

➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters

➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors

That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.

Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).

Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:

In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?

In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.

Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :

Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.

Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.

Book review examples for non-fiction books

Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.

Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!

The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :

The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”

Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.

All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]

Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.

The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.

Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]

Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :

Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.

In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.

To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]

Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

SUBJECT: 4/5

CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5

RELEVANCE: 3.5/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.

Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]

Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:

Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better idea of how to write a book review. You might be wondering how to put all of this knowledge into action now! Many book reviewers start out by setting up a book blog. If you don’t have time to research the intricacies of HTML, check out Reedsy Discovery — where you can read indie books for free and review them without going through the hassle of creating a blog. To register as a book reviewer , go here .

And if you’d like to see even more book review examples, simply go to this directory of book review blogs and click on any one of them to see a wealth of good book reviews. Beyond that, it's up to you to pick up a book and pen — and start reviewing!

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HBR's 10 Must Reads 2024: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review (with bonus article "Democratizing Transformation" by Marco Iansiti and Satya Nadella)

By: Harvard Business Review, Marco Iansiti, Satya Nadella, Lynda Gratton, Ella F Washington

A year's worth of management wisdom, all in one place. We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up to date on the most…

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A year's worth of management wisdom, all in one place. We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up to date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Satya Nadella to Lynda Gratton and company examples from Nestle to TikTok, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips. This book will inspire you to: Radically redefine the role of managers in your organization; Integrate your ESG goals into your company's core business model; Separate the hype from the reality of Web3 and identify opportunities for your business; Navigate conflict and embrace mutual learning across generational differences; Identify the soft skills needed in the C-suite--and build them; Encourage all employees to develop the capabilities around digital transformation. This collection of articles includes "Managers Can't Do It All," by Diane Gherson and Lynda Gratton; "What Is Web3?," by Thomas Stackpole; "Selling on TikTok and Taobao," by Thomas S. Robertson; "Managing in the Age of Outrage," by Karthik Ramanna; "The Five Stages of DEI Maturity," by Ella F. Washington; "The Essential Link Between ESG Targets and Financial Performance," by Mark R. Kramer and Marc W. Pfitzer; "Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings," by Steven G. Rogelberg; "Harnessing the Power of Age Diversity," by Megan W. Gerhardt, Josephine Nachemson-Ekwall, and Brandon Fogel; "The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most," by Raffaella Sadun, Joseph Fuller, Stephen Hansen, and PJ Neal; "Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.," by Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack, and Brendan Rosseau; and "Democratizing Transformation," by Marco Iansiti and Satya Nadella.

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'Feels Pretty Fake and Cheap': Donald Trump's $75 'God Bless the USA' Bible Receives Scathing Reviews From Critics

F ormer President Donald Trump's latest business, selling "God Bless the USA" Bibles , has come under massive scrutiny ever since it was announced, but now book critics are getting their hands on it — and they aren't too happy with the quality of the $75 holy text.

Tim Wildsmith , an expert published Bible reviewer who has reviewed many Bibles from various publishers and has a YouTube page with all of his reviews, criticized Trump's endorsed Bible in April.

"It feels pretty fake and cheap to me, so that shocked me that the Bible was $75 shipped because most publishers of synthetic leather Bibles are going to be $30, $40 bucks at most," Wildsmith told his viewers.

The critic speculated that "a lot of Bibles like this are printed in China " and sarcastically declared, "I would be shocked if Donald Trump was promoting a Bible that was printed and bound in China."

Trump's Bible has no textual footnotes or cross references. Wildsmith did note that the book does open flat, which is nice. However, the actual typeface on the page makes it difficult to read because the paper is thin which causes "ghosting" or "bleeding" from the text on the other side.

The back of the book also contains a glossy card stock, which contains the lyrics to "God Bless the USA," the Declaration of Independence , the original Constitution , the Bill of Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance .

Wildsmith compared the quality of the book to something you'd expect from Walmart for $15-$20.

Ron Filipkowski of MeidasTouch shared Wildsmith's review of the former president's Bible in a post that read, "An expert Bible reviewer decided to order the Trump Bible & give it a shot. What he found was horrifying. Not real leather cover, cheap paper, pages stuck together, likely printed in China."

Several Trump critics took to the comments on the post to ridicule the New York businessman for pushing another "scam" and using people's faith to "make a quick buck."

Never miss a story — sign up for the OK! newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what OK! has to offer. It’s gossip too good to wait for!

One X user shared Filipkowski's post, joking, "I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! I can't believe this would come from the same guy who brought us Trump Steaks, Trump University, the Trump board game and 100 other money laundering schemes ."

Another user commented, "Even the Bible is giving the 'cheap Chinese crap' treatment, just like everything else Donald Trump sells to his gullible and foolish cult followers . Just shows how little respect Donald has for the 'Good Book!'"

The Best Books of the Year (So Far)

The nonfiction and novels we can’t stop thinking about.

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By The New York Times Books Staff

• May 24, 2024

Fiction | Nonfiction

We’re almost halfway through 2024 and we at The Book Review have already written about hundreds of books. Some of those titles are good. Some are very good. And then there are the following.

We suspect that some (though certainly not all) will be top of mind when we publish our end-of-year, best-of lists. For more thoughts on what to read next, head to our book recommendation page .

James , by Percival Everett

In this reworking of the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Jim, the enslaved man who accompanies Huck down the Mississippi River, is the narrator, and he recounts the classic tale in a language that is his own, with surprising details that reveal a far more resourceful, cunning and powerful character than we knew.

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Good Material , by Dolly Alderton

Alderton’s novel, about a 35-year-old struggling to make sense of a breakup, delivers the most delightful aspects of romantic comedy — snappy dialogue, realistic relationship dynamics, funny meet-cutes and misunderstandings — and leaves behind clichéd gender roles and the traditional marriage plot.

Martyr! , by Kaveh Akbar

A young Iranian American aspiring poet and recovering addict grieves his parents’ deaths while fantasizing about his own in Akbar’s remarkable first novel, which, haunted by death, also teems with life — in the inventive beauty of its sentences, the vividness of its characters and the surprising twists of its plot.

The Hunter , by Tana French

For Tana French fans, every one of the thriller writer’s twisty, ingenious books is an event. This one, a sequel to “The Searcher,” once again sees the retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper, a perennial outsider in the Irish west-country hamlet of Ardnakelty, caught up in the crimes — seen and unseen — that eat at the seemingly picturesque village.

Wandering Stars , by Tommy Orange

This follow-up to Orange’s debut, “There There,” is part prequel and part sequel; it trails the young survivor of a 19th-century massacre of Native Americans, chronicling not just his harsh fate but those of his descendants. In its second half, the novel enters 21st-century Oakland, following the family in the aftermath of a shooting.

Headshot , by Rita Bullwinkel

Set at a women’s boxing tournament in Reno, Nev., this novel centers on eight contestants, and the fights — physical and emotional — they bring to the ring. As our critic wrote: This story’s impact “lasts a long time, like a sharp fist to your shoulder.”

Beautyland , by Marie-Helene Bertino

In 1970s Philadelphia, an alien girl sent to Earth before she’s born communicates with her fellow life-forms via fax as she helps gather intel about whether our planet is habitable. This funny-sad novel follows the girl and her single mother as they find the means to persevere.

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder , by Salman Rushdie

In his candid, plain-spoken and gripping new memoir, Rushdie recalls the attempted assassination he survived in 2022 during a presentation about keeping the world’s writers safe from harm. His attacker had piranhic energy. He also had a knife. Rushdie lost an eye, but he has slowly recovered thanks to the attentive care of doctors and the wife he celebrates here.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis , by Jonathan Blitzer

This urgent and propulsive account of Latin American politics and immigration makes a persuasive case for a direct line from U.S. foreign policy in Central America to the current migrant crisis.

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook , by Hampton Sides

By the time he made his third Pacific voyage, the British explorer James Cook had maybe begun to lose it a little. The scientific aims of his first two trips had shifted into something darker. According to our reviewer, the historian Hampton Sides “isn’t just interested in retelling an adventure tale. He also wants to present it from a 21st-century point of view. ‘The Wide Wide Sea’ fits neatly into a growing genre that includes David Grann’s ‘ The Wager ’ and Candice Millard’s ‘ River of the Gods ,’ in which famous expeditions, once told as swashbuckling stories of adventure, are recast within the tragic history of colonialism .”

The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon , by Adam Shatz

This absorbing biography of the Black psychiatrist, writer and revolutionary Frantz Fanon highlights a side of him that’s often eclipsed by his image as a zealous partisan — that of the caring doctor, who ran a secret clinic for Algerian rebels.

Fi: A Memoir , by Alexandra Fuller

In her fifth memoir, Fuller describes the sudden death of her 21-year-old son. Devastating as this elegant and honest account may be — it’s certainly not for the faint of heart — it also leaves the reader with a sense of having known a lovely and lively young man.

Explore More in Books

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John S. Jacobs was a fugitive, an abolitionist — and the brother of the canonical author Harriet Jacobs. Now, his own fierce autobiography has re-emerged .

Don DeLillo’s fascination with terrorism, cults and mass culture’s weirder turns has given his work a prophetic air. Here are his essential books .

Jenny Erpenbeck’s “ Kairos ,” a novel about a torrid love affair in the final years of East Germany, won the International Booker Prize , the renowned award for fiction translated into English.

Kevin Kwan, the author of “Crazy Rich Asians,” left Singapore’s opulent, status-obsessed, upper crust when he was 11. He’s still writing about it .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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Book Review: Emil Ferris tackles big issues through a small child with a monster obsession

The Associated Press

May 28, 2024, 12:17 PM

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There are two types of monsters: Ones that simply appear scary and ones that are scary by their cruelty. Karen Reyes is the former, but what does that make her troubled older brother, Deeze?

Emil Ferris has finally followed up on her visually stunning, 2017 debut graphic novel with its concluding half, “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book 2.” It picks up right where Book 1 left off (spoilers for Book 1 … now), with 10-year-old Karen in a fever dream as she processes her mother’s death from cancer and the revelation that she had another brother named Victor before his twin Deeze killed him.

For the uninitiated, the story is essentially Karen’s diary as she dons a detective hat and oversized coat to solve mysteries — like who killed the upstairs neighbor and where her emaciated classmate disappeared to — in 1968 Chicago , featuring historical events like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and Vietnam War protests. Karen, a monster-loving Catholic school student who identifies more with werewolves than with girls, sketches her experiences in lined notebooks. She has an astounding ability to capture people — a technically skilled artist who also sees through her subjects and depicts their nature alongside their features. And she’s gay, something her beloved Mama definitely did not approve of and which she must now reconcile with the society she lives in.

“Monsters” may be narrated by a kid, but it is definitely an adult book with adult language and themes. Ferris raises complicated issues ranging from the patriarchy’s role in homophobia and America’s role in eugenics to the merits of capitalism, socialism and communism. Along with why school sucks.

And I cannot give Ferris enough accolades for acknowledging the depth of children, who often see and understand more than most adults want to admit.

Ferris revels in gray areas and often calls taboos and moral lines into question, using Karen’s elementary-age perspective as an opportunity to see people not as their profession, race or sexuality, but as people — or, in any case, monsters, but equalizing regardless.

Although Book 2 has an introduction and brief callbacks to remind readers who’s who and what happened, it’s really best to read or reread Book 1 first. There are tons of characters at play and it’s a multi-faceted story that requires deep reading. The recaps are decent reminders, but they can’t possibly capture the nuance from Book 1 in just a page or two.

If Book 2 seems almost too familiar, that’s because it follows the same basic plot arc as Book 1, even down to starting and ending with wild dreams. But unlike its prequel, the plot jumps around with considerably more frequency and suddenness. Ferris leans on her readers to read between the lines and apply the same techniques for viewing her art that her characters use when they visit the Art Institute of Chicago .

“Monsters” is an incredible feat of both storytelling and artistic achievement that makes for a brag-worthy coffee table art book, as well as a compelling story with a seriously intense moral and philosophical workout. Ferris is a must-have for any comic-lover’s collection.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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