The Shortlist for the 2012 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award

The shortlist for the 2012 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award is in, and it is really good. Biographies and economics dominate what FT editor Lionel Barber says is "the strongest list" since the prize launched in 2005. Even though one of my favorite books of the year, Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World Order by Philip Coggan didn't make the cut, I think I agree with Mr. Barber. The list includes:

• Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, Crown BusinessBooks)
• The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk-taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust by John Coates, The Penguin Press
• Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll, The Penguin Press
• Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster
• What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits Of Markets by Michael J. Sandel, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence by William L. Silber, Bloomsbury Press

If you'd like to see the books didn't make the cut, we shared the longlist here when it was announced.

The overall winner will be announced on November 1 at a dinner in New York City. We'll let you know what book takes home the prize here the morning after.