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After six months of reviewing, reading, and debating, it's finally time to announce our top 15 books of the year. Our Non-Obvious team considered more than 1,000 titles, and last month named the best 100 books through the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist. Now, we're narrowing it down even further to our absolute favorite, must-read books of the year.
There are 10 titles on the shortlist, and five top winners in various categories developed with our signature Non-Obvious criteria, which we have used for the past seven years to select the best business and nonfiction books.
Here are our picks for the best nonfiction and business books of 2023:
Publisher: W.W. Norton
At some point in our lives, all of us will experience disability in some way. This dose of reality offers a starting point to the unique perspective you'll find in this book, which is described as "a manifesto exploding what most people think they know about disability."
Most interestingly, it's about the stories that disabled people tell that don't fit the narratives the world expects from them. The common disabled story tropes, as Shew writes, fit into five common categories: pitiable freaks, moochers and fakers, bitter cripples, shameful sinners, and inspirational overcomers. From repositioning wheelchairs as a choice rather than a failure, to exploring the relief that comes from "decyborgifying" for the day (taking off prosthetic limbs and turning down hearing aids), the book will reframe what you know about the lives of the disabled.
For helping all of us rethink the very idea that a disability must always be a liability in the first place, Against Technoableism was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Imagine if an accounting professor could break down the intricacies of large and small examples of fraud to help the rest of us understand why it seems so easy -- and tempting -- to do, and how to protect ourselves against it. That is what you'll get from this timely read in a moment when it seems we are surrounded by fraudsters (crypto), greedy manipulators, and lying self-important politicians (take your pick). Aside from looking at the perpetrators, though, Pope also offers interesting insights into the whistleblowers and victims.
For offering a valuable insider's perspective from the frontlines of fraud, Fool Me Once was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Is there any place that conjures more images of romantic meet-cutes alongside dusty shelves of mystery than a rare bookshop? The "misadventures" of a rare bookseller aptly describes this collection of everyday observations from the viral voice behind the Sotherans bookstore Twitter account, who offers a highly entertaining compendium of quirky observations that only a bookseller with ample time and an unusual customer base might offer: "All books might be made equal but some suffer more than others."
The best parts of the book come from the way the author both celebrates and sees through the legend of books. "There's something wistful about old books when they are gathered in one place," he writes. "They have a faintly unsatisfied smell, as if they're all distantly aware that they've missed their chance to be a worldwide smash hit."
For exposing the fun side of rare books with aplomb and humor, Once Upon a Tome was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Flatiron Books/Macmillan
How do you prevent public urination in India? Or outsmart predatory bankruptcy law in Brazil? What about saving the rainforest by setting up old phones with solar power to use ubiquitous mobile connectivity to "listen" for sounds of chainsaws that get reported to authorities? These are just a few of the "workarounds" that author and consultant Paulo Savaget explores in his highly actionable book.
The Four Workarounds introduces four models for problem-solving action: the piggyback, the loophole, the roundabout, and the next best. The book is filled with stories from the author's experience, but the thing that makes the book stand out is that more than half of it is dedicated to how you can put this mindset to work in your own life and work. For offering a novel and undeniably effective way to solve any complex problem we might face, The Four Workarounds was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Random House
If you happen to see any equitable list of tech thinkers who are likely to shape humanity's future, you will probably find Buolamwini's name on it. Her work on codifying and exposing algorithmic bias has quickly become legendary. And now, with the rise of A.I. technologies and all the dangers it might pose to the goal of building an equitable future, her life's work has become even more urgent.
This book is part memoir and part instructional guide for what technologists, and the rest of us, will have to get right in order to (as the subtitle says) protect what is human in an increasingly automated world. For offering a road map to get A.I., algorithms, and technology itself right without leaving large groups of people behind, Unmasking A.I. was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Kensington Books
How will your life story be told? If the way most of us are already telling it is any guide, our legacies might be in trouble. Your social media bio is both notoriously hard to write, and tragically reductive. What would it take to do better?
Hagerty understands how to tell a life story, and has done so for hundreds of people over the decades that he served as The Wall Street Journal's only full-time obituary writer. In this unique read, he puts his skills to work offering a step-by-step guide for how any of us can tell our story with more honesty and power. For sharing his rare skill in storytelling through a fascinating and instructive guide, Yours Truly was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Wildfire/Headline Publishing Group
The sacred Zoroastrian fires of the world's oldest faith and a 1,300-year-old Japanese temple that is rebuilt every 20 years are one piece of the fascinating backdrop for this book about what it will take to shift our collective mindset toward true long-termism in a short-term world.
This book reads like a combination of a well-researched dissertation and an eye-opening magazine op-ed. Not an easy line to balance, but the author manages it with a writing style that avoids historical digressions that so often veer toward distractions and instead uses those retellings to underscore the fundamental truth of the book--we can reorient our relationship with time, and we must in order for humanity to achieve its real potential millions or perhaps even billions of years into the future.
For compiling an extraordinarily wide-ranging look at how long-term thinking could transform every part of our lives, The Long View was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Harper Business
Some people seem unusually gifted at the art of deciphering the unspoken rules of a certain situation. Those are the ones who also seem to get ahead faster than anyone else and prove themselves indispensable at every turn. What if you could be someone like that?
This book teaches you a skill set that some call "reading the air," a term that the author describes as "understanding the how of work." In global expat circles, the skill is sometimes described as intercultural intelligence, and its principles include learning how to find common ground and train your powers of observing the seemingly insignificant.
For helping to demystify a sometimes-confusing workplace and offering tools for anyone to better find belonging at work, How Work Works was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
If luxury goods and status were the means for us to "measure our value and standing among our fellow citizens," as Thompson writes, then a world where luxury has become attainable for all fundamentally changes this reality.
This book is a road map toward a new vision of luxury, and is likely useful for those who work in any sort of sector that may describe itself as luxury. But more important, it's a look at how our relationship with luxury itself may be shifting, and what role that plays in our self-esteem, relationships, and place in the world.
From the long-rumored link between sports cars and small penises to the use of status for disruption or social justice, this well-reported exploration of what status really means just might change the way you see both yourself and anything you spend more money or time on than you should. For reimagining the way any of us might see our standing in modern society through the consumption choices we make, The Status Revolution was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Publisher: Penguin Press
The story of urban development is a story of parking, and this book reveals just how much demand for free, ubiquitous parking has shaped everything from the structure of our cities to our willingness to venture out of our homes in the first place. As the author notes, "Much of the nation's most valuable real estate is now devoted to empty and idle vehicles, even as so many Americans struggle to find affordable housing." Indeed, everything from the lack of equity in home ownership to homelessness can reasonably be tracked back to one thing: parking.
The future, therefore, will require us to escape -- or at least rethink -- a world where the places we live are held hostage to the demands and desire for free parking.
For revealing the sometimes surprising yet deeply important dysfunctional relationship our modern world has with parking, as well as offering ideas for how we can solve this crisis, Paved Paradise was selected for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist.
Award: The 2023 Most Shareable Non-Obvious Book
Publisher: Random House
Do you believe the arts are important? If so, why?
The first question has always been easier than the second for most of us to answer. Art is important because ... it just is. Your Brain on Art offers something that might otherwise have seemed impossible: a science-infused argument for why the world, and your brain, actually needs art. From explaining how coloring can alleviate anxiety to how art therapy can help first responders overcome trauma, the plentiful examples in this book paint the picture (couldn't help myself) that art serves an important and life-changing purpose.
For offering a new look at the power of art that will make a perfect gift for any art lover, or art skeptic, in your life, Your Brain on Art was selected as the Most Shareable Book of 2023 in the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards.
Award: The 2023 Most Useful Non-Obvious Book
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hatchette Book Group
Do you know how social media really works? Even if you do, Outrage Machine sums it up pretty plainly: Your outrage is creating profit for someone.
The roots of this truth weren't especially nefarious. Online creators telling uplifting stories that engaged your empathy were the first iteration of this machine. Unfortunately, as the like button devolved into the angry button, platforms, politicians, retailers, and the media itself all realized that rage is a more powerful motivator than just about anything else. What will it take to reclaim our attention and avoid the outrage trap? It may start with understanding that every new media revolution comes with this disruption in how we understand the world. But we can overcome it.
For offering a hopeful way to escape the outrage cycle of modern media and practical suggestions to reveal who is fueling our anger and why, Outrage Machine was selected as the Most Useful Book of 2023 in the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards.
Award: The 2023 Most Original Non-Obvious Book
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill/Workman
An entire book on an object that rarely warrants a second thought may seem extravagant. Pockets explores the humble history of an unevenly distributed fashion accessory.
Starting with the revelation that pockets are a relatively modern invention, material culture professor Hannah Carlson takes us on a full-color, art history-inspired look at the many ways pockets have shaped our culture. They were the cause of demise for the once-popular male purse, and offered the inspiration for the pocket-size miniaturization of clocks and handguns. Women have long been "differently pocketed," which offered both a rallying cry for the suffrage movement and a symbolic link to freedom itself.
Pockets, futuristically, may also present a sort of battleground between tech utopians who argue for a device-free haptic future where we will carry nothing and never have a need for pockets and those who believe that humans will never overcome the need to carry hidden yet easily accessible things. Underscoring it all is the not-so-unusual conclusion that pockets may be more important to human history than you ever thought.
For taking a gratuitously colorful look at an everyday piece of fashion that has been routinely underappreciated but never deeply explored, Pockets was selected as the Most Original Book of 2023 in the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards.
Award: The 2023 Most Important Non-Obvious Book
Publisher: Currency/Random House
What percentage of megaprojects such as bridges, skyscrapers, and dams do you think are completed on time and on budget and deliver the anticipated benefits? The answer: less than 1 percent.
This depressing statistic sets the stage for this essential guide to reversing the norm, from the world's leading expert on megaprojects. Startled by the low rate of real success, Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg began exploring why so few of these projects succeed and what we can learn from the failures. Drawing from a vast database of more than 16,000 such projects, Flyvbjerg explains why more than 92 percent of these projects come in over time, over budget, or both.
From self-serving leaders to inadequate planning to a lack of experience, some causes of these failures are exactly what you would expect. But unlike the modern challenges of technology adoption or the ethical debates around how fast we should allow A.I. to "evolve," these are problems that have relatively straightforward solutions, and the book does well to outline them.
For offering the ultimate road map to how potentially world-changing projects might actually deliver on their vision on time and on budget, How Big Things Get Done was selected as the Most Important Book of 2023 in the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards.
Award: The 2023 Most Entertaining Non-Obvious Book
Publisher: William Morrow
History should never be boring, yet the way it is often taught in classrooms is exactly so. Perhaps one reason is because the fringe stories of history that offer context for the bigger moments are often lost.
If you find joy between the lines, so to speak, this will be your type of book. Drawing from a deep well of podcaster energy (it's a thing) and unstoppable curiosity, Schreiber offers a sometimes comedic but always insightful look at the many theories in modern human history that have been forgotten, ignored, or just as often ridiculed--the tale of the Chinese herbal medicine researcher who won a Nobel prize for discovering a cure to malaria in a 1,600-year-old book. The ill-fated attempts to teach dolphins how to speak to humans. These stories and more are all on the menu in this delightfully readable collection of quirky observations that are sure to get you thinking in new directions.
For leaning into curiosity and celebrating the characters of history and their obsessions in a way that offers anyone a new way to see the world, The Theory of Everything Else was selected as the Most Entertaining Book of 2023 in the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards.
A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta
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