Every Year.
Every Winner.

100 books honored

The year's biggest themes: choosing morality in the age of AI, the joy of doing less, defying people-pleasing, trusting your intuition, taking real breaks — and defending democracy under siege. That year’s five winners: Dinner with King Tut · Wild Courage · The Future of Storytelling · Careless People · Moral Ambition.

101 books honored

The year's biggest themes: calming anxiety and burnout, aging well, generosity first, quiet leadership — and friendship as the antidote to an uncertain world. That year’s five winners: Trash Talk · Negotiating While Black · Sticky Notes · Supercommunicators · Brave New Words.

98 books honored

The year's biggest themes: finding the balance between AI and our humanity, redefining good work, celebrating the forgotten foundations of daily life, fixing broken healthcare — and looking beyond happiness itself. That year’s five winners: Pockets · Outrage Machine · The Theory of Everything Else · Your Brain on Art · How Big Things Get Done.

100 books honored

The year's biggest themes: fighting to save books and bookstores, celebrating underappreciated women, reclaiming the web, learning from animals — and figuring out how to emerge from the pandemic comfortable with ourselves. That year’s five winners: All the Living and the Dead · Thinking 101 · Atlas of the Invisible · Quit · Stolen Focus.

75 books honored

The year's biggest themes: the new world of work, shifting power, coming together as a society, facing an uncertain future, putting yourself first — and ending bias for good. That year’s five winners: When We Cease to Understand the World · Think Again · Four Lost Cities · Move · The Lonely Century.

43 books honored

The year's biggest themes: a reckoning with inequality, angry politics, mentoring women, surprising origins, real inclusion, being yourself, choosing a more human future, kindness, broken truth — and making change. That year’s five winners: The Lost Family · True or False · Lurking · Humankind · Make Change.

63 books honored

Every year we select less than 10% of all the books we review to be included in our Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist or Shortlist. That year’s five winners: Nine Lies About Work · Writing to Persuade · Junior · Late Bloomers · Secondhand.

50 books honored

Every year we select less than 10% of all the books we review to be included in our Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist or Shortlist. That year’s five winners: Winners Take All · Factfulness · The Formula · Rebel Talent · Bullshit Jobs.

30 books honored

Every year we select less than 10% of all the books we review to be included in our Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist or Shortlist. That year’s five winners: Win Bigly · Exactly What To Say · Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy · Hit Refresh · Give Work.

15 books honored

After taking a break in 2015 due to the publication of Wall Street Journal bestseller Non-Obvious, this year the awards were rebranded and expanded. This year's awards did not include a Longlist. That year’s five winners: Messy · TED Talks · Disrupted · Small Data · Persuadable.

15 books honored

After this first year, the awards took a break in 2015 due to the publication of Wall Street Journal bestseller Non-Obvious, returning in 2016 under the Non-Obvious brand. This year's awards did not include Longlist selections. That year’s five winners: The Doodle Revolution · Everybody Writes · Dataclysm · How The World Sees You · The Confidence Code.