For the past several months our team at Non-Obvious has been quietly devouring all the books that have come in as submissions for our annual book awards program. It’s always a magical time to have so many books coming in every day and to see just how diverse the topics happen to be.
This year’s selections for the Longlist are our widest range of titles yet, from another hugely competitive year. We considered more than 1000 books published this past year (our award window runs from 11/01/22 to 10/31/23) and our 100 top books range from more than 60 different publishing imprints and authors from all over the world.
In our curated list below – you’ll read about everything from the future of disability to life lessons from a master carpenter. You will get advice on living from an obituary writer, take a deep dive into pockets, discover how parking shapes the world, see why we need to protect bookstores and tour the underappreciated world of Afrofuturism.
These are just a handful of the books on our Non-Obvious Longlist and they are all the books you didn’t know you need to read. The full list is below, along with a few useful links for you to discover more about our awards, methodology and even browse some of the wonderful past winners of our book awards program over the last eight years.
The 2023 Inc Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist
- A City on Mars – Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through? | Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith
- Afrofuturism – A History of Black Futures | Kevin M. Strait, Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Kevin Young and Vernon Reid
- Against Technoableism – Rethinking Who Needs Improvement | Ashley Shew
- Awaken Your Genius – Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary | Ozan Varol
- Back to the Futures – Crashing Dirt Bikes, Chasing Cows, and Unraveling the Mystery of Commodity Futures Markets | Scott H. Irwin and Doug Peterson
- Big Bets – How Large-Scale Change Really Happens | Dr. Rajiv J. Shah
- Black Founder – The Hidden Power of Being an Outsider | Stacy Spikes
- Breaking Free – The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom | Marcie Bianco
- Build a Better Business Book – How to Plan, Write, and Promote a Book That Matters. A Comprehensive Guide for Authors | Josh Bernoff
- Building – A Carpenter’s Notes on Life & the Art of Good Work | Mark Ellison
- Centered – People and Ideas Diversifying Design | Kaleena Sales
- Clear Thinking – Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results | Shane Parrish
- Code to Joy – Why Everyone Should Learn a Little Programming | Michael Littman
- Crossings – How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet | Ben Goldfarb
- Do/ Interesting/ – Notice. Collect. Share. | Russell Davies The Do Book Co.
- Doppelganger – A Trip into the Mirror World | Naomi Klein
- Emotional Labor – The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power | Rose Hackman
- Encounterism – The Neglected Joys of Being in Person | Andy Field
- Everyday Dharma – 8 Essential Practices for Finding Success and Joy in Everything You Do | Suneel Gupta
- Excellent Advice for Living – Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier | Kevin Kelly
- Extremely Online – The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet | Taylor Lorenz
- Fool Me Once – Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry | Kelly Richmond Pope, CPA
- For the Culture – The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be | Dr. Marcus Collins
- Generations – The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America’s Future | Jean Twenge
- Happiness Is Overrated – Simple Lessons on Finding Meaning in Each Moment | Cuong Lu
- Hidden Genius – The secret ways of thinking that power the world’s most successful people | Polina Marinova Pompliano
- Hidden Potential – The Science of Achieving Greater Things | Adam Grant
- How Big Things Get Done – The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between | Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner
- How to Make Money – A New, Honest Guide to Starting and Building a Six-Figure, Successful Business | Nafisa Bakkar
- How to Protect Bookstores and Why – The Present and Future of Bookselling | Danny Caine
- How to Think Like a Woman – Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind | Regan Penaluna
- How to Work with (Almost) Anyone – Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships | Michael Bungay Stanier
- How Work Works – The Subtle Science of Getting Ahead Without Losing Yourself | Michelle Penelope King (PhD)
- I Hope You Fail – Ten Hater Statements Holding You Back from Getting Everything You Want | Pinky Cole
- Knowing What We Know – From the First Encyclopedia to Wikipedia | Simon Winchester
- Look – How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World | Christian Madsbjerg
- Magic Words – What to Say to Get Your Way | Jonah Berger
- MCU – The Reign of Marvel Studios | Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales and Gavin Edwards, Marvel Entertainment
- Misbelief – What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things | Dr. Dan Ariely
- Mixed Signals – How Incentives Really Work | Uri Gneezy
- More Numbers Every Day – How Data, Stats, and Figures Control Our Lives and How to Set Ourselves Free | Micael Dahlen and Helge Thorbjørnsen
- NFTs Are a Scam/ NFTs Are the Future – The Early Years: 2020-2023 | Bobby Hundreds
- Nobody’s Fool – Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It | Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris
- On Being Unreasonable – Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better | Kirsty Sedgman
- Once Upon a Tome – The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller | Oliver Darkshire
- Ordinary Notes | Christina Sharpe
- Outrage Machine – How Tech Is Amplifying Discontent, Undermining Democracy, and Pushing Us Towards Chaos | Tobias R.
- Outsmart Your Brain – Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy | Daniel T. Willingham Ph.D
- Paved Paradise – How Parking Explains the World | Henry Grabar
- Pockets – An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close | Hannah Carlson
- Poverty, by America | Matthew Desmond
- Quiet Street – On American Privilege | Nick McDonell
- Radical Inclusion – Seven Steps to Help You Create a More Just Workplace, Home, and World | David Moinina Sengeh
- Reimagine Inclusion – Debunking 13 Myths To Transform Your Workplace | Mita Mallick
- Right Kind of Wrong – The Science of Failing Well | AMY C. Edmondson
- Saving Time – Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock | Jenny Odell
- Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future – The Case For an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods | Chris Smaje
- Selfless – The Social Creation of “You”| Brian Lowery
- Size – How It Explains the World | Vaclav Smil
- SLAY the Bully – How to Negotiate with a Narcissist and Win | Rebecca Zung
- Soul Boom – Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution | Rainn Wilson
- STFU – The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in a World That Won’t Stop Talking | Dan Lyons
- The Anxious Achiever – Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower | Morra Aarons-Mele
- The Canceling of the American Mind – Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution | Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott
- The Case for Good Jobs – How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work | Zeynep Ton
- The Coming Wave – Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma | Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar
- The Defiant Optimist – Daring to Fight Global Inequality, Reinvent Finance, and Invest in Women | Durreen Shahnaz
- The Four Workarounds – Strategies from the World’s Scrappiest Organizations for Tackling Complex Problems | Paulo Savaget
- The Future is Disabled – Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs | Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
- The Future of the Responsible Company – What We’ve Learned from Patagonia’s First 50 Years | Vincent Stanley and Yvon Chouinard
- The Golden Screen – The Movies That Made Asian America | Jeff Yang
- The Identity Trap – A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time | Yascha Mounk
- The Long View – Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time | Richard Fisher
- The PARA Method – Simplify, Organize, and Master Your Digital Life | Tiago Forte
- The Perennials – The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society | Mauro Guillén
- The Power of Empathy – A Thirty-Day Path to Personal Growth and Social Chang | Michael Tennant
- The Power of One – How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook | Frances Haugen
- The Power of Saying No – The New Science of How to Say No that Puts You in Charge of Your Life | Vanessa Patrick
- The Power of Wonder – The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn, and Lead | Monica Parker
- The Problem of Twelve – When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything| John Coates
- The Real Work – On the Mystery of Mastery | Adam Gopnik
- The Right Call – What Sports Teach Us About Work and Life | Sally Jenkins
- The Second in Command – Unleash the Power of Your COO | Cameron Herold
- The Song of Significance – A New Manifesto for Teams | Seth Godin
- The Status Revolution – The Improbable Story of How the LowBrow Became the Highbrow | Chuck Thompson
- The Teachers – A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession | Alexandra Robbins
- The Theory of Everything Else – A Voyage Into the World of the Weird | Dan Schreiber
- The Wisdom of the Bullfrog – Leadership Lessons Made Simple (But Not Easy) | William H. McRaven
- Turnaround Time – Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies | Oscar Munoz
- Unmasking AI – My Mission To Protect What Is Human In A World of Machines | Joy Buolamwini
- Upshift – Turning Pressure into Performance and Crisis into Creativity | Ben Ramalingam
- Walking with Sam – A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain | Andrew McCarthy
- What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? | Stephen Wolfram
- When Race Trumps Merit – How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives | Heather Mac Donald
- Win Every Argument – The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking | Mehdi Hasan
- Working to Restore – Harnessing the Power of Regenerative Business to Heal the World | Esha Chhabra
- You Will Own Nothing – Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back | Carol Roth
- Your Brain on Art – How the Arts Transform Us | Susan Magsamen & Ivy Ross
- Your Face Belongs to Us – A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy as We Know It | Kashmir Hill
- Yours Truly – An Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Story | James R. Hagerty