Each year, Goodreads reveals its top book across several categories including fiction, mystery & thriller, historical fiction, nonfiction, history & biography, and memoir & autobiography. How about business? No listings. You’d have to roll back to 2014 to find that list.
The 2014 Best Business Books Voted by Goodreads Members
I’m a fan of Goodreads as I maintain an active account there. I’m slowly listing all of the books I’ve read on my various bookshelves.
When Goodreads announced its 11th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards, I thought, “Great, let’s see the rankings on business books.” Bummer, there is no such category.
Sure, there’s a classification for nonfiction, but nothing for management or leadership. I find that odd as it’s a strong category in terms of sales. I’m not even impressed with the 2019 nonfiction selections where Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis was voted on by readers as the top pick.
Thankfully, the crack staff did some digging. At one time, Goodreads did have a category for business books. The last year this category was recognized was in 2014. The best business book that year was #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso. No, I’ve never read it, so I cannot comment on it.
Below, are the 2014 results along with the publish date:
- #GIRLBOSS (2014, 20,112 votes)
- Think Like a Freak (2014, 9,297 votes)
- Creativity, Inc. (2009, 8.725 votes)
- The Pencil of a Pencil (2014, 8,433 votes)
- Flash Boys (2014, 6,913 votes)
- Show Your Work (2014, 5,689 votes)
- Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013, 5,671 votes)
- How Google Works (2014, 5,561 votes)
- Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has Time (2014, 4,558 votes)
- Leaders Eat Last (2013, 3,053 votes)
- Hooked (2013, 1,710 votes)
- Factory Man (2014, 1,678 votes)
- Thrive (2014, 1,488 votes)
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things (2014, 1,486 votes)
- Write. Publish. Repeat (2013, 1,331 votes)
- Zero to One (2014, 1,284 votes)
- Economics: The User’s Guide (2014, 968 votes)
- The Obstacle is the Way (2014, 967 votes)
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (2011, 594 votes)
- Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Results (2014, 366 votes)
Did Goodreads Voters Get it Wrong?
That’s a great list of 20 books listed above. But I’m surprised by the ranking. Creativity, Inc. is one of my favorites, but it was released in 2009, so a third-place finish is not shabby. But I was surprised to see The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Zero to One, and even Thrive ranked so low – each of those titles was released in 2014.
So, I’ll let you decide. Below are three books ranked by reader ratings. If you are not that familiar with Goodreads, I can tell you that their ratings are generally lower than Amazon’s.
Zero to One
Ratings – 138,061
Average Rating – 4.17
Flash Boys
Ratings – 59,844
Average Rating – 4.14
#GIRLBOSS
Ratings – 61,684
Average Rating – 3.69
If CFO Bookshelf was doing the voting, my number 1 pick for 2014 would be Zero to One. It would not even be close. Do you agree?
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