The 2017 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards Shortlist

Although it's never easy to cull our longlist of forty books down to eight, it is easy to celebrate the ones left. 

There is an existential question at the heart of each of the books on our shortlist this year. They include inquiries into our obsession with competition and economic growth, examinations of what we might be sacrificing in the pursuit of technological progress and corporate profits, and expositions on the underlying nature and process of innovation, invention, and entrepreneurship. Each, in the end, is also an affirmation of our humanity, and a reminder that we must bring our full, authentic selves to work to build businesses and economies that serve people.

The books on the shortlist for this year's 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year Award are: 

• Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing - Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne, Hachette Books (Leadership & Strategy)
• Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth, Chelsea Green Publishing (Current Events & Public Affairs)
• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari, Harper (Big Ideas & New Perspectives)
• Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein, Simon & Schuster (Narrative & Biography)
• The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant; Little, Brown and Company (Innovation & Creativity)
• The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth by Eric Ries, Currency (Management & Workplace Culture)
• UnBranding: 100 Branding Lessons for the Age of Disruption by Scott Stratten & Alison Stratten, Wiley (Marketing & Sales)
• Weird in a World That's Not: A Career Guide for Misfits, F*ckups, and Failures by Jennifer Romolini, Harper Business (Personal Development & Human Behavior)

The previous winners of this award have been:

• 2016: What Works: Gender Equality By Design by Iris Bohnet
• 2015: How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery by Kevin Ashton
• 2014: The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael S. Malone
• 2013: Springboard: Launching Your Personal Search for SUCCESS by G. Richard Shell
• 2012: The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni
• 2011: Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins & Morten T. Hansen
• 2010: Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
• 2009: Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—And Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin
• 2008: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
• 2007: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

We will announce this year's overall winner of the 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year at our annual awards ceremony and business book industry celebration in New York City on Thursday, January 18th. Follow along here or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Keen Thinker, for updates.