The 2025 Non-Obvious Book Award Winners

Watch the live winner announcement show ...

See our 2025 Shortlist Selections ...

2025 Most Useful Book of the Year:

Wild Courage

by Jenny Wood


2025 Most Entertaining Book of the Year:

The Future of Storytelling

by Charles Melcher


2025 Most Original Book of the Year:

Dinner With King Tut

by Sam Kean


2025 Most Important of the Year:

Moral Ambition

by Rutger Bregman


2025 Shortlist Selection:

Algospeak

by Adam Aleksic


2025 Shortlist Selection:

Custodians of Wonder

by Eliot Stein


2025 Shortlist Selection:

Enshittification

by Cory Doctorow


2025 Shortlist Selection:

How Things Are Made

by Tim Minshall


2025 Shortlist Selection:

Humanish

by Justin Gregg


2025 Shortlist Selection:

Lucky By Design

by Judd Kessler


2025 Shortlist Selection:

Read Your Mind

by Oz Pearlman


2025 Shortlist Selection:

Superbloom

by Nicholas Carr


2025 Shortlist Selection:

The Doors You Can Open

by Rosalind Chow


2025 Shortlist Selection:

The Genius Myth

by Helen Lewis


The Best Book Covers & Titles of 2025

See the 2025 Longlist Selections ...

2025 was our eleventh anniversary of running these awards - and we considered over 1000 titles to narrow down our Longlist and Shortlist. The titles selected for this list were the very best non-fiction titles published all year. The Longlist is announced and included below.

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NOTE - To buy these books, visit our curated store at Bookshop.org to purchase any of these books and have a portion of your purchase go to support Independent bookstores.

Here are our finalist selections for the 2025 Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist (listed alphabetically by book title):

About the Non-Obvious Book Awards

These awards are organized and judged by the team at the Non-Obvious Company. Our mission is to help leaders, organizations and curious minds learn the habits that allow them to see what others miss and face the unknown. We do this through our published books, popular keynotes, custom workshops, and annual book awards program.

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