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.

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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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

"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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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

business book reviews

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.

business book reviews

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HBR.ORG - Prod

Here are our top 40 bestselling books that are sure to spark your interest, strengthen your management skills, and help you get the results you need in business and beyond. These books offer the best ideas in business and have strongly resonated with our readers. Each offers valuable insights to help you succeed in your career.

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster

In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions--no matter where you are in your career. Whether you're starting a new job, being promoted from within, embarking on an overseas assignment, or being tapped as CEO, how you manage your transition will determine whether you succeed or fail. Use this book as your trusted guide.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Mental Toughness (Paperback + Ebook)

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Mental Toughness (Paperback + Ebook)

If you read nothing else on mental toughness, read these ten articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you build your emotional strength and resilience--and to achieve high performance.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself (Paperback + Ebook)

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself (Paperback + Ebook)

The path to your own professional success starts with a critical look in the mirror. What you see there--your greatest strengths and deepest values--are the foundations you must build on. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on managing yourself and selected the most important ones to help you stay engaged and productive throughout your working life.

Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition

Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant

In this perennial bestseller, globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne challenge everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating"blue oceans"--untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.

Leading Change

Leading Change

Millions worldwide have read and embraced John Kotter's ideas on change management and leadership. Needed more today than at any time in the past, this immensely relevant book serves as both a visionary guide and a practical toolkit on how to approach the difficult yet crucial work of leading change in any type of organization.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Emotional Intelligence (Paperback + Ebook)

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Emotional Intelligence (Paperback + Ebook)

In his defining work on emotional intelligence, bestselling author Daniel Goleman found that it is twice as important as other competencies in determining outstanding leadership. If you read nothing else on emotional intelligence, read these 10 articles by experts in the field.

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership (Paperback + Ebook)

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership (Paperback + Ebook)

How can you transform yourself from a good manager into an extraordinary leader? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

A Wall Street Journal and Businessweek bestseller. Innovation expert Clayton Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right--yet still lose market leadership. Christensen explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. The Innovator's Dilemma gives you a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World

Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World

As strengths guru and bestselling author Marcus Buckingham and Cisco Leadership and Team Intelligence head Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies--distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking--that we encounter every time we show up for work. Nine lies, to be exact.

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works

Playing to Win, a noted Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller. This is A.G. Lafley's guidebook. Shouldn't it be yours as well? It outlines the strategic approach Lafley, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, used to double P&G's sales, quadruple its profits, and increase its market value by more than $100 billion when Lafley was first CEO (he led the company from 2000 to 2009).

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategy (Paperback + Ebook)

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategy (Paperback + Ebook)

Is your company spending enormous time and energy on strategy development, with little to show for your efforts? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on strategy and selected the most important ones to help galvanize your organization's strategy development and execution.

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

It's time to redefine the CEO success story. Meet eight iconoclastic leaders who helmed firms where returns on average outperformed the S&P 500 by over 20 times. Drawing on extensive research, author Will Thorndike tells many of these leaders' stories for the first time--and extracts lessons for those of you hoping to lead your company to exceptional returns today.

Dealing with Difficult People

Dealing with Difficult People

At the heart of dealing with difficult people is handling their--and your own--emotions. How do you stay calm in a tough conversation? How do you know if you're difficult to work with? This book explains the research behind our emotional response to challenging colleagues and shows how to build the empathy and resilience to make those relationships more productive.

Managing Oneself

Managing Oneself

It's up to you to carve out your place in the world and know when to change course. And it's up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive during a career that may span some 50 years. In Managing Oneself, one of the world’s leading thinkers on the practice and study of management, Peter Drucker, identifies the probing questions you need to ask to gain the insights essential for taking charge of your career.

The Mind of a Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

The Mind of a Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

Based on extensive research, including assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 C-level executives, The Mind of the Leader concludes that organizations and leaders aren't meeting employees' basic human needs of finding meaning, purpose, connection, and genuine happiness in their work. To solve the leadership crisis, organizations need to put people at the center of their strategy.

Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

Written by three eminent economists, Prediction Machines recasts the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction and lifts the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype to show how different industries can benefit from it. The impact of AI will be profound, but as this book shows, the economic framework for understanding it is surprisingly simple.

Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

Inc. magazine calls it one of"the best, clearest guides to the numbers" on the market. Readers agree, saying it's exactly"what I need to know" and calling it a"must-read" for decision makers without expertise in finance. Accessible, jargon-free, and filled with entertaining stories of real companies, Financial Intelligence gives nonfinancial managers the confidence to understand the nuance beyond the numbers--to help bring everyday work to a new level.

The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy and orchestrator of the retailer’s spectacular turnaround, unveils his personal playbook for achieving extraordinary outcomes by putting people and purpose at the heart of business.

Human + Machine: Reimaging Work in the Age of AI

Human + Machine: Reimaging Work in the Age of AI

AI is changing all the rules of how companies operate. Based on the authors' experience, Accenture leaders Paul Daugherty and Jim Wilson, and research with 1,500 organizations, this book reveals how companies are using the new rules of AI to leap ahead on innovation and profitability, as well as what you can do to achieve similar results.

The Founders Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth

The Founders Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth

Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? When Bain & Company's Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader--not only a founder--can instill and leverage a founder's mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.

HBR Guide to Better Business Writing

HBR Guide to Better Business Writing

When you are fumbling for words and pressed for time, you might be tempted to dismiss good business writing as a luxury. But it is a skill you must cultivate to succeed. The HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, by writing expert Bryan Garner, gives you the tools you need to express your ideas clearly and persuasively so clients, colleagues, stakeholders, and partners will get behind them.

HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

Terrified of speaking in front of a group? Or simply looking to polish your skills? No matter where you are on the spectrum, this guide, written by presentation expert Nancy Duarte, will give you the confidence and the tools you need to get the results you desire.

Harvard Business Review Manager’s Handbook: The 17 Skills Leaders Need to Stand Out

Harvard Business Review Manager’s Handbook: The 17 Skills Leaders Need to Stand Out

The one primer you need to develop your managerial and leadership skills. Whether you're a new manager or looking to have more influence in your current management role, the challenges you face come in all shapes and sizes--a direct report's anxious questions, your boss's last-minute assignment of an important presentation, or a blank business case staring you in the face.

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing People (Paperback + Ebook)

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing People (Paperback + Ebook)

Managing people is fraught with challenges: What really motivates people? How do you deal with problem employees? How can you build an effective team? The answers to these questions can be elusive--even to a seasoned manager. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on managing people to help you deal with these--and many other--management challenges.

StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work

StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work

From the recognized leader of the strengths movement, Marcus Buckingham, StandOut 2.0 is a revolutionary book and tool that enables you to identify your strengths, and those of your team, and act on them. It also includes the assessment and a robust report on your most dominant strengths. The report is easily exported so you can use it to present the very best of yourself to your team and your company.

Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations

Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations

A good visualization can communicate the nature and potential impact of ideas more powerfully than any other form of communication. In Good Charts, dataviz maven Scott Berinato provides an essential guide to how visualization works and how to use this new language to impress and persuade. This book will help you turn uninspiring charts that merely present information into smart, effective visualizations that powerfully convey ideas.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness

The benefits of mindfulness include better performance, heightened creativity, deeper self-awareness, and increased charisma--not to mention greater peace of mind. This book gives you practical steps for building a sense of presence into your daily work routine.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership is a hands-on, practical guide containing stories, tools, diagrams, cases, and worksheets to help you develop your skills as an adaptive leader, able to take people outside their comfort zones and assess and address the toughest challenges. The authors’, Ron Heifetz, Marty Linsky, and Alexander Grashow, have decades of experience helping people and organizations create cultures of adaptive leadership.

Influence and Persuasion

Influence and Persuasion

Changing hearts is an important part of changing minds. Research shows that appealing to human emotion can help you make your case and build your authority as a leader. This book highlights that research and shows you how to act on it, presenting both comprehensive frameworks for developing influence and small, simple tactics you can use to convince others every day.

Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First

Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First

Most executives today recognize the competitive advantage of human capital, and yet the talent practices their organizations use are stuck in the twentieth century. Turning conventional views on their heads, talent and leadership experts Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey provide leaders with a new and different playbook for acquiring, managing, and deploying talent--for today's agile, digital, analytical, technologically driven strategic environment--and for creating the HR function that business needs.

How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart about the Numbers

How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart about the Numbers

Through entertaining case studies, interactive exercises, full-color visuals, and a conversational style that belies the topic, Harvard Business School Professor Mihir Desai tackles a broad range of topics that will give you the knowledge and skills you need to finally understand how finance works.

Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

This is the book that established"emotional intelligence" in the business lexicon--and made it a necessary skill for leaders. Managers and professionals across the globe have embraced Primal Leadership, affirming the importance of emotionally intelligent leadership. The book and its ideas are now used routinely in universities, business and medical schools, professional training programs, and by a growing legion of professional coaches.

Competing in the Age of AI

Competing in the Age of AI

AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value. Authors Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years.

Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take

Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take

In this seminal book, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman and sustainable business guru Andrew Winston argue that to thrive today and tomorrow, companies must become “net positive” — giving more to the world than they take. With bold vision and compelling stories, Net Positive sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world so desperately needs.

Getting Along: How to Deal with Anyone (Even Difficult People)

Getting Along: How to Deal with Anyone (Even Difficult People)

Work relationships can be hard. The stress of dealing with difficult people dampens our creativity and productivity and can cause us to disengage. In Getting Along, workplace expert Amy Gallo identifies eight familiar types of difficult coworkers—the insecure boss, the passive-aggressive peer, the know-it-all, and others—and provides strategies for dealing constructively with each one.

Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life

Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life

In his new book, world-renowned researcher and New York Times bestselling author Marcus Buckingham helps us discover where we're at our best — both at work and in life. In understanding our unique strengths and loves, we can choose the right role on a team, mold our existing roles so it calls on our very best, and as leaders, make lasting change for our teams and organizations.

Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You

Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You

Bestselling authors Frances Frei and Anne Morriss argue that the most important thing you can do to be a great leader is to build others up. Showing how the boldest, most effective leaders use a special combination of trust, love, and inclusion to create a space in which other people can excel, Frei and Morriss provide practical tools — along with interviews and stories from their own personal experience — to make these ideas come alive.

Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change

Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change

It's exciting to think of leadership as all inspiration, decisive action, and rich rewards, but leading requires taking risks that can jeopardize your career. In this classic, renowned leadership experts Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky show how it’s possible to make a difference in your organization without getting “taken out” or pushed aside. Through vivid stories from all walks of life, the authors present straightforward strategies for navigating the perilous straits of leadership.

HBR’s 10 Must Reads for New Managers (Paperback + Ebook)

HBR’s 10 Must Reads for New Managers (Paperback + Ebook)

Develop the mindset and presence to successfully manage others for the first time. If you read nothing else on becoming a new manager, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you transition from being an outstanding individual contributor to becoming a great manager.

Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them

Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them

In a world of unprecedented challenges, we need organizations that are resilient and daring. In Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini make a passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better.

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21 Top Business Books to Read in 2024

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

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

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

The Common Path to Uncommon Success

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

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

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

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

People Skills

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

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 $1Million

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

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

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

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

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

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

Built to Sell

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

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 & Leadership

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

Purple Cow

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

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

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

Business Made Simple

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 .

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 avatar

Author: Angela Robinson

Marketing Coordinator at teambuilding.com. Team building content expert. 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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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.

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

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

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

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

The Best Business Books of 2023: the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award - Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive by Amy Edmondson

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

The Best Business Books of 2023: the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award - Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

The Best Business Books of 2023: the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award - Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara

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

The Best Business Books of 2023: the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award - The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma by Michael Bhaskar & Mustafa Suleyman

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

The Best Business Books of 2023: the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award - Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway

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.

Before 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?

This year the prize had over 500 entries. That wasn’t a record. I never know quite how to gauge that: whether that means that some publishers didn’t submit as many books or whether there weren’t as many books published.

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.

Finally, speaking as the former management editor of the Financial Times and someone who’s been working on the prize for decades, I’ve always been not necessarily disappointed, but surprised that management books don’t get further. I think it’s because they’re written in a ‘this is a tool that you can use’ way and that doesn’t quite appeal to the judges. But this year there are two books on the shortlist which I consider to be management-y books: Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmondson and How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. Interestingly, both are books about failing. How Big Things Get Done is about big projects, how they generally fail, and how to prevent them from failing. Right Kind of Wrong is about how to fail better.

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 .

He doesn’t underplay the environmental risks being run in order to get the materials that make up our daily lives, but this is a book that says, ‘Yay! Capitalism does things that actually make the world work.’ He’s clearly in awe, if you like, of the extraordinary human ingenuity that goes into producing these materials and then transmuting them into the things that we use day to day. From that point of view, if there’s a book on this list that doesn’t fit the template of outright scepticism about the world of business, this is probably it. This is the one that says, ‘There are risks here, and these need to be handled, but look at human ingenuity!’

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?

Yes, but I think there are individual lessons here. There are some important workplace lessons. I interviewed Amy last year about psychological safety. I put her in touch with one of the CEOs I’d interviewed who runs a ‘failure Friday’, where you admit to what went wrong and you talk about it with your colleagues. So these sorts of ideas do have a practical, personal effect, but the book is not self-help. It’s at a more elevated level than that.

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.

There is a dictum in publishing that you don’t put the word ‘failure’ into your title because people find it depressing. But what’s great about reading about failure is the schadenfreude that readers can bring to it. This book is full of things going wrong that are great to read about. Not only Sydney Opera House-sized disasters, but also some slightly more recognisable ones. There’s a great account of a kitchen refurbishment – admittedly, a high-end one in New York – that went disastrously wrong. They draw a lot of personal lessons from this that make this book a really interesting read.

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.

There’s a point where he says, ‘other than safety, I don’t want any codes or protocols or specifications that are going to get in the way of making this more efficient and simpler’, which is an interesting approach. He’s clearly a huge risk taker. That’s obvious already, but you see quite a lot of him saying, ‘We could do this quicker’ or ‘We could do this bigger.’ He takes these decisions – to the astonishment and, at times, panic of his staff – to push it to the limit.

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.

The other interesting point that comes out in the book is the involvement of China. These artisan miners are almost exclusively selling their product to Chinese traders. And so, clearly, the Chinese and China, as a state, are deeply embedded in this supply chain. He recounts appalling racist comments from one of the traders, talking about the unwillingness of the Congolese to work hard and organise themselves. This Chinese gentleman suggests that only the Chinese can organise them to make money. But all the money is going somewhere else. It’s pretty shocking.

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

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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As I was reading Klara and the Sun , I couldn’t help but think about which parts of it paint a picture of our likely future—and which parts were pure fiction.

A Neglected Classic

Business Adventures is old, hard to find, and the best business book ever.

business book reviews

Not long after I first met Warren Buffett back in 1991, I asked him to recommend his favorite book about business. He didn’t miss a beat: “It’s Business Adventures , by John Brooks,” he said. “I’ll send you my copy.” I was intrigued: I had never heard of or John Brooks.

Today, more than two decades after Warren lent it to me—and more than four decades after it was first published— Business Adventures remains the best business book I’ve ever read. John Brooks is still my favorite business writer. (And Warren, if you’re reading this, I still have your copy.)

A skeptic might wonder how this out-of-print collection of New Yorker articles from the 1960s could have anything to say about business today. After all, in 1966, when Brooks profiled Xerox, the company’s top-of-the-line copier weighed 650 pounds, cost $27,500, required a full-time operator, and came with a fire extinguisher because of its tendency to overheat. A lot has changed since then.

It’s certainly true that many of the particulars of business have changed. But the fundamentals have not. Brooks’s deeper insights about business are just as relevant today as they were back then. In terms of its longevity, Business Adventures stands alongside Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor , the 1949 book that Warren says is the best book on investing that he has ever read.

Brooks grew up in New Jersey during the Depression, attended Princeton University (where he roomed with future Secretary of State George Shultz), and, after serving in World War II, turned to journalism with dreams of becoming a novelist. In addition to his magazine work, he published a handful of books, only some of which are still in print. He died in 1993.

As the journalist Michael Lewis wrote in his foreword to Brooks’s book The Go-Go Years , even when Brooks got things wrong, “at least he got them wrong in an interesting way.” Unlike a lot of today’s business writers, Brooks didn’t boil his work down into pat how-to lessons or simplistic explanations for success. (How many times have you read that some company is taking off because they give their employees free lunch?) You won’t find any listicles in his work. Brooks wrote long articles that frame an issue, explore it in depth, introduce a few compelling characters, and show how things went for them.

In one called “The Impacted Philosophers,” he uses a case of price-fixing at General Electric to explore miscommunication—sometimes intentional miscommunication—up and down the corporate ladder. It was, he writes, “a breakdown in intramural communication so drastic as to make the building of the Tower of Babel seem a triumph of organizational rapport.”

In “The Fate of the Edsel,” he refutes the popular explanations for why Ford’s flagship car was such a historic flop. It wasn’t because the car was overly poll-tested; it was because Ford’s executives only pretended to be acting on what the polls said. “Although the Edsel was supposed to be advertised, and otherwise promoted, strictly on the basis of preferences expressed in polls, some old-fashioned snake-oil selling methods, intuitive rather than scientific, crept in.” It certainly didn’t help that the first Edsels “were delivered with oil leaks, sticking hoods, trunks that wouldn’t open, and push buttons that…couldn’t be budged with a hammer.”

One of Brooks’s most instructive stories is “Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox.” (The headline alone belongs in the Journalism Hall of Fame.) The example of Xerox is one that everyone in the tech industry should study. Starting in the early ’70s, the company funded a huge amount of R&D that wasn’t directly related to copiers, including research that led to Ethernet networks and the first graphical user interface (the look you know today as Windows or OS X).

But because Xerox executives didn’t think these ideas fit their core business, they chose not to turn them into marketable products. Others stepped in and went to market with products based on the research that Xerox had done. Both Apple and Microsoft, for example, drew on Xerox’s work on graphical user interfaces.

I know I’m not alone in seeing this decision as a mistake on Xerox’s part. I was certainly determined to avoid it at Microsoft. I pushed hard to make sure that we kept thinking big about the opportunities created by our research in areas like computer vision and speech recognition. Many other journalists have written about Xerox, but Brooks’s article tells an important part of the company’s early story. He shows how it was built on original, outside-the-box thinking, which makes it all the more surprising that as Xerox matured, it would miss out on unconventional ideas developed by its own researchers.

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Brooks was also a masterful storyteller. He could craft a page-turner like “The Last Great Corner,” about the man who founded the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain and his attempt to foil investors intent on shorting his company’s stock. I couldn’t wait to see how things turned out for him. (Here’s a spoiler: Not well.) Other times you can almost hear Brooks chuckling as he tells some absurd story. There’s a passage in “The Fate of the Edsel” in which a PR man for Ford organizes a fashion show for the wives of newspaper reporters. The host of the fashion show turns out to be a female impersonator, which might seem edgy today but would have been scandalous for a major American corporation in 1957. Brooks notes that the reporters’ wives “were able to give their husbands an extra paragraph or two for their stories.”

Brooks’s work is a great reminder that the rules for running a strong business and creating value haven’t changed. For one thing, there’s an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn’t matter if you have a perfect product, production plan, and marketing pitch; you’ll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans.

That is a lesson you learn quickly in business, and I’ve been reminded of it at every step of my career, first at Microsoft and now at the foundation. Which people are you going to back? Do their roles fit their abilities? Do they have both the IQ and EQ to succeed? Warren is famous for this approach at Berkshire Hathaway, where he buys great businesses run by wonderful managers and then gets out of the way.

Business Adventures is as much about the strengths and weaknesses of leaders in challenging circumstances as it is about the particulars of one business or another. In that sense, it is still relevant not despite its age but because of it. John Brooks’s work is really about human nature, which is why it has stood the test of time.

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Hannah Ritchie’s Not the End of the World is an essential antidote to environmental doomsday-ism.

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The Song of the Cell proves that Siddhartha Mukherjee is one of the best science writers working today.

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Vaclav Smil has written “a brief history of hype and failure."

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Some favorites from 2023, including a new playlist.

This is my personal blog, where I share about the people I meet, the books I'm reading, and what I'm learning. I hope that you'll join the conversation.

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2. BobbyPowers.net

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3. The Extraordinary Business Book Club

The Extraordinary Business Book Club

4. Brenda Humphreys Blog » Business

Brenda Humphreys Blog » Business

5. Financial Times » Business books

Financial Times » Business books

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Blogging on Business » Book Reviews

7. The Enlightened Economist

The Enlightened Economist

8. Kirkus Reviews » Business

Kirkus Reviews » Business

9. 15 Minute Business Books Blog

15 Minute Business Books Blog

10. Greatest Hits Blog

Greatest Hits Blog

11. Charelle Griffith » Entrepreneurship & Business Books

Charelle Griffith » Entrepreneurship & Business Books

12. Business Book Spoilers » Business Book Review

Business Book Spoilers » Business Book Review

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14. Small Business Trends » Business Books Reviews

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15. My Business Book Club Blog

My Business Book Club Blog

16. Small Business Labs » Book Reviews

Small Business Labs » Book Reviews

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

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

18. Strategy+Business » Business Books

Strategy+Business » Business Books

19. Inc.com » Business Books

Inc.com » Business Books

20. LoveReading » Business and Management

LoveReading » Business and Management

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BookTrib » Business Books

22. Hooked To Books » Business

Hooked To Books » Business

23. 3 Entrepreneur Essential

3 Entrepreneur Essential

24. Summaries Blog

Summaries Blog

25. The Book Blogger List » Business / Fianance

The Book Blogger List » Business / Fianance

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17 Book Review Examples to Help You Write the Perfect Review

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Blog – Posted on Friday, Mar 29

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

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.

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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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Are Facebook and Instagram still down? Here’s what we know

Joe Maring

If you had difficulty using Facebook and Instagram today, we have some news: you weren’t alone. On Tuesday, March 5, both of the Meta-owned social media websites were experiencing outages, rendering them unusable for many people. This came after AT&T experienced a nationwide outage of its own last month.

When did the Facebook and Instagram outage start?

Are facebook and instagram still down, where was the facebook and instagram outage happening, is there also a youtube outage, are other websites down.

When did this Facebook /Instagram outage start? Are any other websites down? Is the outage fixed? Here’s everything we know.

Looking at Down Detector, reports of Facebook and Instagram being down first started coming in a little before 10:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday. Reports spiked around 10:24 a.m., with over 500,000 outage reports coming in at that time.

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Instagram outage reports saw a similar spike, with over 77,000 outage reports coming into Down Detector around the same time.

What was wrong? Users were reporting that they had been logged out of Facebook with no ability to log back into their accounts. As for Instagram, we saw reports of people’s feeds not refreshing to show new posts.

As of 12:50 p.m. ET, it looks like Facebook and Instagram are gradually coming back online. Via the Meta Status website , Meta now reports that all of the following services are “Recovering from disruptions”:

  • Ads Manager
  • Facebook & Instagram Shops
  • Meta Business Suite
  • Meta Admin Center
  • Facebook Login
  • Messenger API for Instagram
  • Messenger Platform
  • WhatsApp Business API

Additionally, at 12:19 p.m., Andy Stone on the Meta Communications team posted the following on X:

Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience. https://t.co/ybyyAZNAMn — Andy Stone (@andymstone) March 5, 2024

There’s a chance Facebook and Instagram may still be acting up for you, but it looks like everything is coming back online and gradually returning to normal.

The Facebook and Instagram outages appeared to be affecting people all over the U.S. Down Detector showed reports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Minneapolis, and throughout Florida, Michigan, New York, and elsewhere.

If you lived in the U.S., chances are you were affected.

In addition to Facebook and Instagram, YouTube has also confirmed that it’s experiencing issues as well. At 11:28 a.m. ET, the Team YouTube account acknowledged its own issues on X:

thanks to everyone who sent notes about loading issues with YouTube: we're on it! 🔍 will follow up here once things are back to normal, you can also follow our Help Community post for details ➡️ https://t.co/4Ezmtku3Em — TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) March 5, 2024

As far as YouTube’s issues are concerned, there have been reports of empty home pages, Shorts not loading, and more. It’s unclear when YouTube will be back to normal, but we suspect it’ll take some time.

In addition to Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, there were other websites with increased outage reports this morning. Down Detector also showed increased outage reports for Google Play, Threads, X (formerly Twitter), and other websites.

It’s unclear if these outages were related, separate issues, or incorrect user reports. Cloudflare did identify an issue this morning, too, so it’s possible all of these outages are related to that. Cloudflare says it began implementing a fix shortly after 11 a.m. ET, and most issues appear to have slowly gotten back to normal after that.

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Joe Maring

A week ago, a shocking report emerged: Apple apparently had no plans for a larger iMac, potentially meaning the iMac Pro was dead and buried. However, opposition voices soon emerged, and the consensus now seems to be that Apple has only ruled out the 27-inch iMac, not the idea of a larger all-in-one entirely.

In fact, just yesterday, Bloomberg Mark Gurman reiterated his previous claims that a larger iMac is still in the works. That’s an exciting rumor because I’ve felt for years that the iMac isn’t quite living up to its potential. If a larger, more powerful version really is still in development, it could be a seriously impressive device. Here’s everything I want to see from it. More raw power

Android 14 is out now, and as usual, the first to get it is Google's own Pixel phone family. Samsung has already released the One UI 6 update based on Android 14 for its latest flagship phones and continues to test for older devices, while Nothing is still in the beta-testing phase.

If you're rocking an Android phone that is still stuck on an old Android build, here's everything that we know about official Android 14 rollout plans for all major brands available in the U.S. market. Google Pixel phones

I’ll keep it simple. Stay away from the Wrapped for Instagram trend. The app has been making rounds in the App Store’s top bracket for the past few days, and the premise is a little too lucrative to ignore in the first place.

You may see your friends online showing off their Wrapped stats, but before you go and join in the "fun" for yourself, please consider the following first. What is the Wrapped for Instagram app?

business book reviews

The Dirt: Kindred & Co.opens book store-bistro concept in Post Falls

A 14,000-square-foot bookstore opened Thursday in Post Falls that includes craft coffee and a bistro.

Business partners Elizabeth Harrison and Selinna Maesau said they created the space, at 851 E. 4th Ave., to connect people.

“There’s something so special that can happen over a good cup of coffee or a shared plate with friends,” Harrison said in news release. “That’s what we wanted to bring to Northern Idaho.”

Maesau, who will manage the business, previously told The Spokesman-Review that bookshelves will hold around 20,000 titles, comprise 8,000 square feet of the building and span two floors. The other 6,000 square feet is dedicated to the bistro, seating, conservatory and a community room that can be reserved for events.

“Every aspect of Kindred was intentionally and thoughtfully created with connection in mind,” Maefau said in the release.

The two have been best friends since they were 15. They share a love for traveling where they find motivation for the cuisine of their bistro menu.

“The French items on our menu are kind of like an ode to our travels we’ve had in Paris and around France,” Maesau said in a previous report.

The menu consists of sandwiches, salads and shareable items, like charcuterie boards, which can be found at tapas bars or French restaurants. The cuisine is typically served on a large wooden board and includes preserved foods, meats, cheeses and served with crackers or bread.

Harrison said the business will not include a typical wait staff, but, instead, patrons will order at the counter.

When the two business partners travel, they make it a point to visit bookstores – partly because of their vested interest in them and to conduct research.

“We wanted to take everything that we liked from other bookstores and make it our own,” Harrison said in previous reports.

The location will employ about 15 workers, Maesau said.

The rooftop deck will act as outdoor seating for the bistro until the business’ second year of operation when the two hope to turn it into event space.

The estimated cost of the building was $5 million, according to permits submitted to the city of Post Falls in May 2022.

Monroe Project

Developers will soon meet with the city of Spokane regarding plans to renovate a property on Monroe Street, across from the Central Spokane YMCA.

According to city records, work would include façade improvements and efforts to turn the property into a 15,316-square-foot retail space.

Nick Czapla, chief operating officer for L.B. Stone Properties Group, said the building can easily be divided to host two tenants. Retailers have not been chosen, because the company has not marketed the property, he said.

“We pulled it off the market, because we want to beautify it first. People will look at it and won’t be able to see it as anything better, because its such an ugly building,” he said, and added the previous owner of the property at 1023 N. Monroe St. operated an automotive repair shop in the space.

When the company earns a building permit from the city and a construction timeline is established, it will begin looking for tenants.

“The interior will pretty much be built to suit,” he said. “Retail in that area is definitely lacking, and we think it’s a great building with unique features like wood trusses in the interior.”

Czapla said a meeting is scheduled with the city on March 7. Though it is early in the permitting process, he anticipates renovation work to take around three months.

It is unclear how many tenants will occupy the space. According to a listing on the company website, the space is divisible. Plans show two separate entrances to be installed on the building’s north wall.

Currently, the property is zoned for manufacturing use. A change-of-use application has not been submitted, according to city records.

The plot was purchased by L.B. Stone Properties in 2022, for $2,425,000 according to county records.

Renovation efforts are estimated to cost $250,000, according to documents submitted to the city.

On the northern portion of the property is a paved area that will be replaced with a parking lot that will include landscaping islands, lighting and ramps so the property is in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, plans showed.

The sidewalk on the eastern edge of the property, along Monroe Street, will also be replaced. Tree wells will be added to the sidewalks.

New siding, brick work and anti-graffiti paint will be implemented on the exterior of the building.

A canopy connected to the western wall of the building will be demolished and replaced with more parking stalls, according to the submitted documents.

We never thought we’d need WA Cares: We were wrong

My wife Dani went in for a routine medical procedure when she was 30 years old.

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Spring Budget 2024

This is the Spring Budget 2024 in full. You can find supporting and related documents below.

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Spring Budget 2024 (web)

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Spring Budget 2024 (print)

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Impact on households: distributional analysis to accompany Spring Budget 2024

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Spring Budget 2024: Data Sources

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Table 5.2 Spring Budget 2024 Measures announced at Autumn Statement 2023 or earlier that will take effect from April 2024 or later

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The Chancellor of the Exchequer presented his Spring Budget to Parliament on Wednesday 6 March 2024.

Distributional Analysis

This document sets out the estimated impact of changes to tax, welfare and public service spending policy that carry a direct, quantifiable impact on households. It also presents estimates of the overall level of tax paid and public spending received by households.

Policy costings

This document sets out the assumptions and methodologies used in the government’s costing of policy decisions announced since Autumn Statement 2023.  For each decision it contains a description of the measure, the base, and the methodology for the costing (including relevant adjustments for behavioural responses). It highlights main areas of additional uncertainty.

Data sources

This document sets out the data sources used in charts, tables and text in the Spring Budget 2024 document. This should be read in parallel to the references contained in the Spring Budget 2024 document.

Table 5.1 shows the cost or yield of all government decisions accounted for at Spring Budget 2024 which have a direct effect on Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB) in the years up to 2028-29. This includes tax measures, changes to aggregate Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) and measures affecting annually managed expenditure (AME).

Table 5.2 shows the cost or yield of all announced government policy decisions that will take effect from April 2024 or later, with a direct effect on Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB), costed using the determinants from the OBR’s March 2024 forecast in the years up to 2028-29. This includes tax measures, and measures affecting annually managed expenditure (AME).

Also publishing alongside Spring Budget 2024:

Spring Budget 2024: Personal Tax Factsheet

Spring Budget 2024: Non-UK domiciled individuals - Policy Summary

Changes to the taxation of non-UK domiciled individuals

Debt Management Report 2024-25

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Business Rates Avoidance and Evasion: Consultation response

Seizing the Opportunity: Delivering Efficiency for the Public

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NatWest Retail Offer

Memorandum of Understanding for the “Trailblazer” Single Settlements for Greater Manchester and West Midlands Combined Authorities

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Buckinghamshire Level 2 Devolution Framework Agreement

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Joint Statement on Addressing Water Scarcity in Greater Cambridge

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Written statement to Parliament - Revised National Networks National Policy Statement

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The following documents have been added: Written statement to Parliament - Revised National Networks National Policy Statement, Consultation outcome - Draft revised National Networks National Policy Statement, National Networks National Policy Statement, Appraisal of sustainability for National Networks National Policy Statement, National Networks National Policy Statement habitats regulation assessment, and Government response to Transport Committee report on draft revised National Networks National Policy Statement

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A Fast-Paced History of ‘Women Behind the Wheel’

In a chronicle laced with memoir, Nancy A. Nichols explores how the automobile has provided both freedom and dangers for female motorists.

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The cover of “Women Behind the Wheel” by Nancy A. Nichols shows a sporty black-and-red 1950s car driving down a road, with grass and trees visible in the distance. Against the blue sky, the text is white and red.

By Juliet Nicolson

Juliet Nicolson is a social historian. Her most recent book is “Frostquake: How the Frozen Winter of 1962 Changed Britain Forever.”

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WOMEN BEHIND THE WHEEL: An Unexpected and Personal History of the Car , by Nancy A. Nichols

Love of driving has been in the DNA of my family’s women since at least 1913, when bemused pedestrians watched my grandmother belting down an English high street behind the wheel of her fiancé’s green Morris Oxford.

In the writer and journalist Nancy Nichols’s fascinating, funny, enraging and often very moving book, “Women Behind the Wheel,” she time-travels even further in reverse, introducing the female drivers of a flimsy 1880s vehicle that was “little more than a motorized tricycle.”

Patriarchal skepticism was a fact from the days when women, gussied up in goggles and lap blankets, were generally perceived as “too nervous, too timid, too weak” to be trusted to drive. Early gas-powered vehicles were considered especially dangerous: Not only was the engine capable of chemical explosion, but, it was feared, its vibrations might ignite a perilously distracting sexual arousal.

By the 1930s cars had transformed women’s romantic lives, providing a much-craved private space away from the parental gaze. Along with drive-in movie theaters — known as “passion pits” — cars opened up “pleasures of the world: boyfriends, parties, libraries and soda fountains.”

The illusion of emancipation was flawed; the car “enslaved women even as it liberated them.” Gradually, the prisonlike tedium of errand-running, shopping and chauffeuring was only intensified by the convenience of private vehicles. For many women, the family car became restaurant, office, day care, church.

And yet for all its hard-edged machinery, gender warring and auto-business shenanigans, the emotional engine of this book is Nichols’s own poignant story.

For one thing, while recounting more than a century’s worth of motor history, Nichols includes her personal experience of the boxy 1960s Dodge Dart, the sporty 1970s Mustang and her subsequent minivan, Beetle, Honda, Jeep and Subaru. And there is much more to this often heartbreaking memoir: jagged relationships, a fatal car accident and the deaths of those closest to Nichols.

Growing up in midcentury Detroit, where the General Motors factories formed the center of “the car world,” she was the daughter of a new- and used-car salesman, “unmistakable in his lime green leisure suits” and his “checkerboard sports jackets.” This was an environment that ridiculed and intimidated women drivers, where “jokes about their driving skills” were ubiquitous.

As a schoolgirl, Nichols hoped to take an auto-repair class; she was forced into meringue-making lessons. And her home life reinforced the dynamic, as her father’s outward identity — sales-pitch bravado and critical dominance — increasingly took over. When “lying became his business,” it led to the disintegration of his marriage and to his wife and young daughter’s escape in a light blue Chevy convertible.

Widening her focus, Nichols concludes by addressing the iniquities of pollution that threaten our individual and environmental health. However, she has an interesting take on the particular danger that cars, designed for men’s bodies, continue to create for women. The electric vehicle may alleviate ecological threat, but also may carry further unknown risks. In Nichols’s sobering telling, cars are growing ever larger, becoming ever more costly and more hazardous, eroding women’s basic need to “stay safe in an unsafe world.”

WOMEN BEHIND THE WHEEL : An Unexpected and Personal History of the Car | By Nancy A. Nichols | Pegasus | 230 pp. | $28.95

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

Tessa Hulls’s “Feeding Ghosts” chronicles how China’s history shaped her family. But first, she had to tackle some basics: Learn history. Learn Chinese. Learn how to draw comics.

James Baldwin wrote with the kind of clarity that was as comforting as it was chastising. His writing — pointed, critical, angry — is imbued with love. Here’s where to start with his works .

After nationwide protests over racial inequality led publishers to promise they would reshape their overwhelmingly white industry, a survey showed they made little progress toward a more diverse publishing work force .

Aaron Lansky spent a lifetime building the Yiddish Book Center, one of the country’s leading Jewish cultural institutions. He’s ready to hand over the reins .

Do you want to be a better reader?   Here’s some helpful advice to show you how to get the most out of your literary endeavor .

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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    1,313 followers. Get In Touch. Review Policy Contact. The best business book blogs ranked by influence, up to date. These business book reviewers can help you get book reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and more. Filter by business book review blogs and business book bloggers who do free book reviews. Easily submit your book for review today.

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