Thursday, November 2, 2023

best books for leaders

 

Every year since 2014, the Non-Obvious Company has reviewed nonfiction books published throughout the year and selected the best of the best -- the most insightful, the most impactful, the most "non-obvious" -- for their annual book awards. This year, they're partnering with Inc. Magazine to produce the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards, showcasing the best business books for entrepreneurs and other business leaders, as selected by Non-Obvious Company founder Rohit Bhargava.

Here are all of this year's winners, listed alphabetically by title.

1. A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith

A witty overview of space exploration exposing all the inconvenient truths of why space habitation is actually really hard, and why we might need to temper our dreams of space settlement with harsh reality. 

 2. Afrofuturism by the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Kevin Strait, Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Kevin Young, and Vernon Reid

Offers an important and illuminating chronicle of the widely underappreciated contributions of Afrofuturists to imagining a better and more equitable future for humanity. 

3. Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew

Unlike most books about disability, this one is written by a disabled person. Academic Ashley Shew aims to "explode" common perceptions about disability and explain how to create a more equitable world. 

4. Awaken Your Genius by Ozan Varol

This guide to innovation explores why we call some people "geniuses" when really, every single one of us could learn to be a genius. 

5. Back to the Futures by Scott Irwin and Doug Peterson

Scott Irwin and Doug Peterson explain why we should be thinking about commodity futures markets -- how they work, and how they impact us even when we're not invested in them -- just a little more. 

6. Big Bets by Rajiv Shah

Big Bets offers a manifesto for what it really takes to think bigger, ask more ambitious questions, maintain your optimism, and actually set yourself on the path to change the world. 

7. Black Founder by Stacy Spikes

MoviePass founder Stacy Spikes explains what happened when he pursued his dream -- and the lessons he learned that could open the door for so many others like himself. 

 8. Breaking Free by Marcie Bianco

Bianco argues that we should not pursue equality -- an unrealistic ideal grounded in racism and sexism -- but should instead make it our mission to pursue freedom. 

 9. Build a Better Business Book by Josh Bernoff

Bernoff offers a step-by-step guide to writing a good business book. 

10. Building by Mark Ellison

A memoir from a master carpenter may not immediately seem like the ideal place to learn timeless business lessons, but Ellison offers plenty of takeaways that would rival the best guidebooks on growing a business. 

11. Centered by Kaleena Sales

Designer Kaleena Sales argues that diverse design perspectives and styles should not be an ancillary component of design education, but rather a core component of the curriculum.

12. Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish

The key to a better future is to master the art of making the right decisions in everyday, seemingly insignificant moments. 

13. Code to Joy by Michael L. Littman

You may not realize it, but learning a little bit of programming might indeed be an important part of surviving our digital future. 

14. Crossings by Ben Goldfarb

Goldfarb lays out why roads are the key to human history -- and our future -- and explores what it would take to build roads that positively benefit the environment as opposed to destroying it. 

15. Do Interesting by Russell Davies

Advertising legend Russell Davies offers a collection of tips on what it really takes to be more creative and more noticeable. 

16. Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

What if you discovered a mirror version of yourself who believed in everything you despised? What sounds like science fiction sets that stage for a very real memoir from influential social critic Naomi Klein that will transform the way you see yourself in a world filled with floods of fake content and people. 

17. Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman

For decades, the invisible work of emotional labor was never understood or discussed. Emotional Labor is a well-researched exploration of why emotional work often disproportionately holds women and people of color back, and how exposing it can foster more equality in work and life. 

18. Encounterism by Andy Field

In an increasingly digital world, we need to refocus on the joy of being physically together and the beauty of ordinary encounters. 

19. Everyday Dharma by Suneel Gupta

In a time when it can be hard to center on your purpose at work, Everyday Dharma reminds you how to rediscover your essence (or dharma). 

20. Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly

A collection of advice from one of the tech industry's longtime icons that reads like the very best life advice from a benevolent grandfather who has been at the center of the technological shift in the world, and offers up short, digestible lessons he's curated along the way. 

21. Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz

Promising to chronicle the entire history of social media, Lorenz offers a highly engaging exploration of what living our lives "extremely online" is doing to our self-esteem, relationships, and our culture at large. 

22. Fool Me Once by Kelly Richmond Pope

Kelly Richmond Pope -- a forensic accounting professor and the director of All the Queen's Horses, a documentary about the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history -- investigates how scams make so much money, examines the people working within them, and spotlights the whistleblowers who break them open.

23. For the Culture by Marcus Collins

Collins explores culture's role in our decisions and why it is so essential that we understand it, whether we're consumers or marketers. 

24. Generations by Jean M. Twenge

Renowned generational researcher Jean Twenge offers a detailed look at every generation's habits. It presents a roadmap to understanding the forces that each generation's mindset exerts on their collective behavior, and how they interact with one another.

25. Happiness Is Overrated by Cuong Lu

Written by an ordained monk, Happiness Is Overrated: Simple Lessons on Finding Meaning in Each Moment exhorts us to stop spending so much time chasing happiness and instead to look at the truth of our lives, without denying our suffering, and find joy in each moment. 

26. Hidden Genius by Polina Marinova Pompliano

From the founder of The Profile, Pompliano brings to light the perspectives and ways of thinking that have empowered leaders like Al Pacino and Lin-Manuel Miranda to succeed. 

27. Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

Social scientist Adam Grant argues that we can all rise to achieve great things and offers a roadmap to realizing your hidden potential that focuses on learning how to improve at improving. 

28. How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner

The world's leading expert on megaprojects offers an insider's look at why some billion-dollar projects fail while others succeed. 

29. How to Make Money by Nafisa Bakkar

Bakkar offers a transparent look at both her experience as a Muslim female entrepreneur and at what it actually takes to create a lucrative business. 

30. How to Protect Bookstores and Why by Danny Caine

Bookstore owner Danny Caine argues for the value of bookstores -- and his guide for how we can all contribute to saving them. 

31. How to Think Like a Woman by Regan Penaluna

Writer and journalist Regan Penaluna wanted to study philosophy -- and soon found that all philosophers taught in her classes were male. She chronicles her efforts to find and learn from women philosophers.

32. How to Work With (Almost) Anyone by Michael Bungay Stanier

From the best-selling author of The Coaching Habit comes a practical guidebook on what it takes to work with every type of person. 

33. How Work Works by Michelle P. King

Your success in any business endeavor might come down to your ability to read all the unspoken elements of a situation. This skill, also dubbed "reading the air," is just one of the useful insights you'll take away.

34. I Hope You Fail by Pinky Cole

You wouldn't think a book actively hoping you'll fail would offer much inspiration, but restaurateur Pinky Cole offers 10 irreverently useful "hater statements" along with the secret for overcoming them. 

35. Knowing What We Know by Simon Winchester

Winchester explores the rise of the encyclopedia -- including Wikipedia -- and investigates whether the ways in which we collect knowledge are impeding our ability to think. 

36. Look by Christian Madsbjerg

A teacher who developed a course on human observation offers a nuanced guide on how to recapture our ability to pay attention that will help you focus on the unexpected, listen better, and really look at everything happening around you. 

37. Magic Words by Jonah Berger

Renowned marketing professor Jonah Berger offers an immediately useful exploration of six types of "magic words" that can motivate others, unlock creativity, and persuade anyone. 

38. MCU by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards

A historic look at the pop culture universe of Marvel Studios, its rise, and how that movement happened. 

39. Misbelief by Dan Ariely

Why do some people succumb to misbeliefs and shift their reality -- and how can any of us prevent ourselves from being misbelievers? A legendary social scientist offers some answers. 

40. Mixed Signals by Uri Gneezy

Gneezy uses behavioral economics and game theory to explore our approach to incentives and how we can design things to be more effective. 

41. More Numbers Every Day by Micael Dahlen and Helge Thorbjornsen

Economics professors Micael Dahlen and Helge Thorbjornsen examine our obsession with numbers -- tracking our sleep, steps, friends, and more -- and how you can live a happier, healthier life by understanding their context. 

42. NFTs Are a Scam/NFTs Are the Future by Bobby Hundreds

Hundreds provides a rare, balanced look at both the opportunity and the bullshit driving the NFT craze, and offers an even-handed but still optimistic way to make sense of the hype. 

43. Nobody's Fool by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris

Psychology professors Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris explain why we get misled and what habits we can cultivate to avoid getting scammed.

44. On Being Unreasonable by Kirsty Sedgman

British cultural studies scholar Kirsty Sedgman explores the relative definition of "reasonable" and its role in why we disagree. 

45. Once Upon a Tome by Oliver Darkshire

Oliver Darkshire comes to work at an antique bookstore in London, takes it over, and learns unexpected lessons from working with rare books. 

46. Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

Part poetry collection and part art project, Ordinary Notes has been described as "a brilliant new literary form" and offers a fascinating, immersive look at the everyday Black experience that will change your perspective. 

47. Outrage Machine by Tobias Rose-Stockwell

Rose-Stockwell argues that our outrage is fueled by algorithms, and investigates what it does to our culture when outrage is continually fueled and monetized. 

48. Outsmart Your Brain by Daniel T. Willingham

A practical, step-by-step guide on exactly how to be a better learner -- a valuable skill at work and in life at any stage. 

49. Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar

Examines everything you've never thought about in terms of parking and reveals why understanding it might be the key to creating more livable cities in the future. 

50. Pockets by Hannah Carlson

Carlson explores the history of pockets, what they reveal about us and our perspective on gender, and why that matters. 

51. Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

Desmond suggests the solution to inequity may be in our willingness to become "poverty abolitionists" and offers a manifesto to ending poverty in America. 

52. Quiet Street by Nick McDonell

A short memoir written from the perspective of a young white man who was forced to confront his elite background, it attacks the 1 percent and how they cling to power, and examines what it would take for them to share it. 

53. Radical Inclusion by David Moinina Sengeh

From the classrooms of Sierra Leone, Sengeh tackles the idea of creating a better, more inclusive world through lessons on identifying exclusions, building connections, and reimagining the systems that hold people back. 

54. Reimagine Inclusion by Mita Mallick

A more mature look at the evolution and meaning of DEI, Mallick breaks down 13 common ideas people believe about diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

55. Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmondson

Edmondson guides readers to avoiding the shame of failure and instead pursuing "intelligent failure," which will help you achieve more success by getting better at learning from the things you'll inevitably do wrong. 

56. Saving Time by Jenny Odell

In this irreverent guide from the best-selling author of How to Do Nothing, you'll learn how to reevaluate the role time plays in your life to find a better balance. 

57. Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future by Chris Smaje

Social scientist and farmer Chris Smaje explains how farms work, and how we can protect nature as well as keep farms alive. 

58. Selfless by Brian Lowery

Lowery argues that your self isn't just you, but everything around you -- and so your highs and lows belong to others too. It's an empowering, reimagined way to look at yourself. 

59. Size by Vaclav Smil

An impressively wide-ranging, unique look at a topic that truly affects everything. 

60. SLAY the Bully by Rebecca Zung

You're going to deal with narcissists, in life as well as business. Zung breaks down the unfortunately necessary skill of negotiating and dealing with these individuals. 

61. Soul Boom by Rainn Wilson

The Office actor offers a humorous explanation of how we can use spirituality and religion to bring people together and find balance, instead of letting it divide us.

62. STFU by Dan Lyons

An entertainingly blunt book that offers the underappreciated call to action for all of us to shut the f*ck up. Learning to be strategically quiet and to speak with intention might not only help you succeed, it might also make the world better for the rest of us. 

63. The Anxious Achiever by Morra Aarons-Mele

Top-rated podcaster Aarons-Mele explains how to lean into anxiety and make it work for you. 

64. The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott

A remarkably thoughtful review of a sensitive topic for many, Lukianoff provides an exploration of the roots of cancel culture on American college campuses and its effects on our ability to tolerate and engage with dissenting viewpoints. 

65. The Case for Good Jobs by Zeynep Ton

MIT professor Zeynep Ton examines the connection between retention and jobs that make people feel good while doing them -- and how we can use this concept to improve frontline jobs. 

66. The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman

An A.I. thinker and ethicist explores what the future of A.I. will bring and what the ethical considerations need to be. 

67. The Defiant Optimist by Durreen Shahnaz

Part memoir and part guidebook, this shares Shahnaz's efforts to fight for women's rights as well as her advice for redistributing finances to more equitably invest in the community. 

68. The Four Workarounds by Paulo Savaget

Savaget offers a practical and story-filled guide on using four of the most common workarounds. 

69. The Future Is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

A rare look at the future from a disabled perspective: Told through the unique format of love letters, the book offers the sadly radical idea that a utopian future and disabled people can coexist. 

70. The Future of the Responsible Company by Vincent Stanley and Yvon Chouinard

A marketing pamphlet of sorts about the Patagonia founders' decision to give the company away nevertheless offers a refreshing, behind-the-scenes look at exactly what the company's leadership has learned from their unique approach to business. 

71. The Golden Screen by Jeff Yang

Jeff Yang brings Asian American culture to life through the movies that have shaped or told the story of the Asian experience in America. 

72. The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk

Mounk challenges conventional thinking about identity and reveals how we might find belonging in groups without letting identity fuel the idea that we are in conflict with one another. 

73. The Long View by Richard Fisher

BBC journalist Richard Fisher explains why, in a world dominated by the 24-hour news cycle, thinking in terms of deeper, longer time scales is so essential. 

74. The PARA Method by Tiago Forte

A quick guide expanding on the author's highly practical and popular method for organizing all the files in your digital clutter to help you focus on what matters most, instead of getting buried in digital folders and email. 

75. The Perennials by Mauro F. Guillén

A different look at generational differences argues that the terms we typically use to define generations are outdated because they put us into rigid categories, and offers an explanation of how we can create more effective intergenerational collaboration and communication. 

76. The Power of Empathy by Michael Tennant

Effectively balances a self-help approach with a practical explanation of how we can use empathy as a tool. 

77. The Power of One by Frances Haugen

A fantastic example of bravery and how one person's actions really can change the world. 

78. The Power of Saying No by Vanessa Patrick

Patrick offers a process and toolkit for something you probably know you should do more -- say no -- and explains how you can go about doing that in a way that doesn't make you feel wracked with guilt. 

79. The Power of Wonder by Monica C. Parker

A well-thought-out dissection of "wonder" and a compelling reminder of just how important to our emotional fulfillment it can be to find consistent ways to cultivate more wonder in our lives. 

80. The Problem of 12 by John Coates

Harvard professor John Coates examines the issues that come up in a world where a few institutions exert influence over politics, the economy, and nearly every other aspect of our lives. 

81. The Real Work by Adam Gopnik

Gopnik explains how masters become experts at their craft and what they can teach the rest of us about improving at whatever we do. 

82. The Right Call by Sally Jenkins

Acclaimed sports writer Sally Jenkins relates all she's learned from interviewing legendary athletes, coaches, and other sports minds. 

83. The Second in Command by Cameron Herold

Leadership coach Cameron Herold explains just how important a COO is and why getting the right person in that role can significantly improve a CEO's success. 

84. The Song of Significance by Seth Godin

This collection of short anecdotes will make you think about the biggest aspects of your business by delivering potentially huge suggestions in a small, digestible format. 

85. The Status Revolution by Chuck Thompson

A wildly original look at how we assign status and a deeper review of the macro shift that may cause a reimagining of the idea of luxury. 

86. The Teachers by Alexandra Robbins

An urgent and sometimes disturbing look at the true lives and work of U.S. teachers exploring what teachers deal with on a daily basis, why they're so underpaid and underappreciated, and why it's so difficult to get people to enter that profession. 

87. The Theory of Everything Else by Dan Schreiber

Popular podcaster Dan Schreiber offers an entertaining journey into "weird," all to help you find new ways to think differently. 

88. The Wisdom of the Bullfrog by William H. McRaven

Navy Admiral William H. McRaven offers leadership lessons from legendary military officers and breaks down everything he himself has learned in his journey to becoming admiral.

89. Turnaround Time by Oscar Munoz

The unlikely story of a leader who took over a major airline, had a near-fatal heart attack a month later, and then managed to recover and lead a dramatic turnaround at United Airlines. 

90. Unmasking AI by Joy Buolamwini

Legendary A.I. researcher Joy Buolamwini explores how we can be more human in a world that is increasingly dominated by technology. 

91. Upshift by Ben Ramalingam

You'll discover the secrets of becoming an "upshifter" who can innovate under any kind of pressure. 

92. Walking With Sam by Andrew McCarthy

Actor and travel writer Andrew McCarthy tells his story of walking through Spain with his son and explores the power of taking time off. 

93. What Is ChatGPT Doing... and Why Does It Work? by Stephen Wolfram

Prominent scientist Stephen Wolfram offers a short, accessible explanation of the technology behind ChatGPT, how it works, and what it's actually doing.

94. When Race Trumps Merit by Heather Mac Donald

Mac Donald argues that we may be overcorrecting when it comes to creating more policies and opportunities for disadvantaged groups, and that that overcorrection may actually be causing us to leave equity behind. 

95. Win Every Argument by Mehdi Hasan

The ambitious but somehow realistic goal of this book is to help you win any argument. 

96. Working to Restore by Esha Chhabra

Chhabra examines regenerative commerce through several lenses, exploring how can we use the economy and the things we're producing to simultaneously resurrect and rebuild the environment. 

97. You Will Own Nothing by Carol Roth

In a world where ownership and the need for it is transformed, Roth offers an activist lens on why we all may want to fight back for our right to own things once again. 

98. Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross

The authors use compelling science and fascinating stories to offer up an argument that many have long believed but rarely had proof of -- that art helps humanity flourish. 

99. Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill

The fight to create and improve facial recognition technology is riveting, scary, and timely...this is the perfect introduction not only to the evolution of this technology, but also to what we should all know about the potential dangers this technology poses. 

100. Yours Truly by James R. Hagerty

A Wall Street Journal obituary writer's explanation of how obituaries are written and what they tell us about people's lives. What would your obituary say -- and what would you want it to say?

https://www.inc.com/inc-staff/non-obvious-book-awards-best-books-2023.html

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