Rounding Up the Best of 2011

Posting the strategy + business list before the Thanksgiving break reminded me that we haven't seen quite as many "best of 2011" business lists at this point of year as we have in years past. Beside the Goldman Sachs/FT award and s+b's list, The only two I've seen have come from booksellers—Amazon and Hudson.

Amazon's Best Books of 2011 were announced earlier this month. The books in the Business & Investing category are:

• In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy, Simon & Schuster
• Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz, Rodale Press
• EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches by Dave Ramsey, Howard Books
• Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, HarperBusiness
• Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki, Portfolio
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries, Crown Business
• Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom, Crown Business
• Endgame: The End of the Debt Supercycle and How It Changes Everything by John Mauldin, John Wiley & Sons
• Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity by Josh Linkner, Jossey-Bass
• Poke the Box by Seth Godin, The Domino Project

But the list of books that would interest a business reader doesn't end in the business category. It extends into Biographies & Memoirs with Walter Isaacson's bio of Steve Jobs, and even Joshua Foer's Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Foer's book also made it in the general Nonfiction category, along with The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick and A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor. The design nerds among us might also enjoy Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield, which made the Nonfiction list as well.

Hudson Booksellers Best were announced quietly late last month. The Best Business Interest included:

• Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: How I Went from Gang Member to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur by Ryan Blair with Don Yaeger, Portfolio
• Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World by William D. Cohan, Doubleday Books
• Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story by Peter Guber, Crown Business
• Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company
• The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World by Daniel Yergin, The Penguin Press

Other, less business-centric lists have been announced, such as Publishers Weekly, whose (admittedly long) Nonfiction list includes a smattering of books that would be of interest to the business reader:

• The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick, Pantheon
• Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company
• The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson, Riverhead Books
• The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey D. Sachs, Random House

There will most likely be many more coming soon. The Economist is making an event out of their list this year, with their first "Books of the Year" festival at London's SouthBank Centre early next month. We'll get that list to you when it's announced, and will keep you updated as more come in, including our own!