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Award Winner Roundups

The Most Original
Non-Fiction Books
Of The Past Decade

Every year since 2014, the Non-Obvious Book Awards have honored one book as the Most Original Book of the Year: the book unlike anything else published that year, built on an idea we had simply never seen before. Collected here: every winner, in one definitive reading list.

*This list does not include books published in 2026, which are currently under review as part of our 2026 awards program.

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Dinner with King Tut by Sam Kean — book cover
2025 · Most Original Winner

Dinner with King Tut

by Sam Kean

Sam Kean joins the experimental archaeologists recreating the sounds, smells and tastes of the ancient world: history you can practically eat.

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Trash Talk by Rafi Kohan — book cover
2024 · Most Original Winner

Trash Talk

by Rafi Kohan

Rafi Kohan explores the art, science and psychology of talking trash, from locker rooms to boardrooms, and what verbal combat reveals about competition itself.

Buy AmazonBuy LocalListen To EpisodeAll 2024 Winners →
Pockets by Hannah Carlson — book cover
2023 · Most Original Winner

Pockets

by Hannah Carlson

Hannah Carlson turns an everyday afterthought into a revelatory cultural history: who gets pockets, who doesn't, and what that says about power, gender and design.

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All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell — book cover
2022 · Most Original Winner

All the Living and the Dead

by Hayley Campbell

Hayley Campbell spends time with the people who work with death, from embalmers to executioners to gravediggers, to ask what their work teaches the rest of us about living.

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When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut — book cover
2021 · Most Original Winner

When We Cease to Understand the World

by Benjamin Labatut

Benjamín Labatut's genre-defying account of the scientists whose discoveries brushed against madness: a book that reads like nothing else honored in our awards' history.

Buy AmazonBuy LocalAll 2021 Winners →
The Lost Family by Libby Copeland — book cover
2020 · Most Original Winner

The Lost Family

by Libby Copeland

Libby Copeland explores how at-home DNA tests are upending identity, exposing family secrets and rewriting what it means to be related.

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Nine Lies About Work by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall — book cover
2019 · Most Original Winner

Nine Lies About Work

by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall

Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall take aim at the workplace's most cherished orthodoxies, from culture to feedback to work-life balance, and explain what the evidence actually says.

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Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas — book cover
2018 · Most Original Winner

Winners Take All

by Anand Giridharadas

Anand Giridharadas's unsparing look at how the global elite's worldchanging efforts often protect the very systems that created the problems: a book that reframed an entire debate about philanthropy.

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Win Bigly by Scott Adams — book cover
2017 · Most Original Winner

Win Bigly

by Scott Adams

Dilbert creator Scott Adams dissects the persuasion techniques that powered one of the most unlikely campaigns in political history: a provocative field guide to influence in a post-fact world.

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Messy by Tim Harford — book cover
2016 · Most Original Winner

Messy

by Tim Harford

Tim Harford argues that disorder, in our desks, our plans and our lives, is a creative force, and that our instinct to tidy everything comes at a real cost.

Buy AmazonBuy LocalAll 2016 Winners →
The Doodle Revolution by Sunni Brown — book cover
2014/15 · Most Original Winner

The Doodle Revolution

by Sunni Brown

Sunni Brown makes the serious case for doodling as a thinking tool: a visual language that unlocks memory, insight and better ideas in even the most buttoned-up workplaces.

Buy AmazonBuy LocalAll 2014/15 Winners →

Keep Exploring

See every winner, every year.

Browse the full archive of winners, shortlists and 100-book longlists from every year of the Non-Obvious Book Awards.

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