The 2015 800-CEO-READ Business Books of the Year Shortlist

We are announcing the shortlist for the 2015 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year today. The books on our shortlist are:

• We Are Market Basket: The Story of the Unlikely Grassroots Movement That Saved a Beloved Business by Daniel Korschun and Grant Welker, AMACOM Books (General Business)
• Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia, Portfolio (Leadership & Management)
• How to Fly A Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery by Kevin Ashton, Doubleday (Innovation & Creativity)
• The Compass and The Nail: How the Patagonia Model of Loyalty Can Save Your Business, and Might Just Save the Planet Craig Wilson, Rare Bird Books (Marketing)
• The Revenue Growth Habit: The Simple Art of Growing Your Business by 15% in 15 Minutes Per Day by Alex Goldfayn, Wiley (Sales)
• Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business Paul Downs, Blue Rider Press (Entrepreneurship)
• Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age Sherry Turkle, Penguin Press (Personal Development)
• America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve by Roger Lowenstein, Penguin Press (Finance & Economics)

I have to admit… I always feel of kind like I do around the baseball playoffs at this point. The work the authors and publishers (and the agents, desginers, and publicists, and more) put into the construction of a book is the really important work, and the only thing they can control. When it gets to awards season, or the playoffs, it's kind of a crap shoot or a spin of the wheel as to who wins. Not that we're literally spinning a wheel of course. We've had multiple long and heavy discussions, some bordering on argument, getting the list winnowed down, but all eight books left on the list are worthy of winning the overall award this year—some that didn't even make it to this point are. All forty on the longlist are worth the attention of business people. They will all, we believe, improve business because they exist in the world.

But, we have to choose one. It is to an extent arbitrary, but it's also a decision we put a lot of time and consideration into. And while we each go in rooting for one book or another (sometimes two or three) we also know that it always depends on who else is in the race, how they play off of each other, and the overall environment the books exist in, which changes from year to year. Who has the most dominant start? How will the closers come into play?What powerful idea will change the conversation with one swing of the intellectual bat. What unlikely utility idea can step up and bring the whole thing home.

We have one set of eight books to give away. Good luck!