The Top 11 Business Books of 2018
I love to read business books that help me learn and grow, but sometimes it is hard to know where to start — especially because there are 11,000 new business books published every year.
To help narrow down my reading list, I went in search of the best-of-the-best business books from the past year. I researched just about every top media outlet that has been publishing “Best of 2018” lists, including Inc., Fast Company, Financial Times & McKinsey, Business Insider, Amazon, Goodreads, as well as the books recommended by Bill Gates, Barack Obama and other successful people.
I then cross-referenced the lists to see which books showed up multiple times. It turns out that, among the seven lists I studied, only 11 books made the cut more than once.
That made an easy cutoff point for an overall Top Business Books of 2018 list. A “list of lists,” if you will.
I figure that if more than one top business media outlet believes a book is among the very best from the past year, that book is certainly worth my time (and yours).
The order of the Top 11 below is based on the number of times that book showed up on the various media lists I examined. For example, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou, is ranked #1 because it landed on five of the seven top lists I read, two more than the next closest competitor (the number of top lists for each book is included in parentheses after the author’s name below).
For tie-breakers, I referenced the book’s ranking from the lists I researched, as well as customer reviews and ratings on Amazon.com.
If you keep reading past the overall Top 11 below, you will see the full list from each of the media outlets I studied (as well as links to purchase any of the books).
And at the end of this article, I share my personal favorite business book from the past year.
TOP 11 BUSINESS BOOKS OF 2018
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (5)
2. The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser (3)
3. New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms (3)
4. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle (2)
5. Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans (2)
6. Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr (2)
7. Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord (2)
8. Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin (2)
9. Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock with Tahl Raz (2)
10. The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree (2)
11. Capitalism in America: A History by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge (2)
Here are the Best Business Books of 2018 as selected by each of the top media outlets I researched:
Inc.
- Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans
- Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda
- Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance — and What We Can Do About It by Jeffrey Pfeffer
- Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else) by Ken Auletta
- Leap: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied by Howard Yu
- Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin
- The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership by Fred Kofman
- New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms
- Regulatory Hacking: A Playbook for Startups by Evan Burfield with J.D. Harrison
- When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink
Fast Company
- Can You Learn to Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem to Win More Often Than Others by Karla Starr
- My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired by Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander
- Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock with Tahl Raz
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
- Calm Clarity: How to Use Science to Rewire Your Brain for Greater Wisdom, Fulfillment, and Joy by Due Quach
- Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder by Chip Conley
- Building on Bedrock: What Sam Walton, Walt Disney, and Other Great Self-Made Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Building Valuable Companies by Derek Lidow
Financial Times & McKinsey
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
- New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms
- The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree
- Capitalism in America: A History by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge
- The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato
- Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World by Annie Lowrey
Business Insider
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
- Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock with Tahl Raz
- Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio
- Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side by Howard Marks
- Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang
- Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More by Morten Hansen
- Leaders: Myth and Reality by General Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone
- The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
- The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change by Ellen Ruppel Shell
- Capitalism in America: A History by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge
- Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord
- Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World by Bethany McLean
- It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Goodreads
- The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
- Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too by Gary Vaynerchuk
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
- Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord
- Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr
- The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser
- Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work by Alison Green
- How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith
- Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin
- Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life by Francesca Gino
Recommended by Bill Gates, Barack Obama and other successful people
- Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute (Recommended by Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield)
- That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together by Joanne Lipman (Recommended by Billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban)
- The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser (Recommended by self-made millionaire and media mogul Arianna Huffington)
- Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Recommended by Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block)
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (Recommended by Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates)
- The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh (Recommended by Wharton professor and organizational psychologist Adam Grant)
- The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti (Recommended by Former President Barack Obama)
- New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms (Recommended by Virgin Group founder and billionaire Richard Branson)
Amazon
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
- The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
- Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans
- The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser
- Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr
- The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
- The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree
- Astroball: The New Way to Win It All by Ben Reiter
- Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown
And finally, my personal favorite book of the past year (although it was actually published in late 2017) is Meaningful Work: A Quest to Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul by Shawn Askinosie and Lawren Askinosie.
That book changed how I think about work and life more than anything else I read over the past year. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I hope you all have a great year of reading ahead of you in 2019!
