Though this fall’s business and economic books were all underway when the pandemic struck, many address issues that have been exacerbated by the coronavirus.

Top 10

Accountable: The Rise of Citizen Capitalism

Michael O’Leary and Warren Valdmanis. Harper Business, Aug. 18 ($29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-297651-2)

The authors, both investors, argue that if capitalism is to be fixed, new tools must be developed that change corporations’ obsession with profits.

Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime

Jennifer Taub. Viking, Sept. 29 ($28, ISBN 978-1-984879-97-4)

Taub details the ways ordinary Americans suffer when the rich use white collar crimes to gain and sustain wealth, social status, and political influence.

Billion Dollar Loser

Reeves Wiedeman. Little, Brown, Oct. 20 ($28, ISBN 978-0-316-46136-8)

Journalist Wiedeman explores the rise and fall of WeWork, suggesting that the excesses of its founder shaped a corporate culture unlike any other.

Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace

David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson. Harvard Business Review, Oct. 13 ($30, ISBN 978-1-63369-872-7)

Smith and Johnson examine how men can partner with their female colleagues to advance women’s leadership, break gender stereotypes, and create productive working relationships.

How I Built This

Guy Raz. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Sept. 15 ($28, ISBN 978-0-358-21676-6)

Based on the NPR podcast How I Built This with Guy Raz, this book offers insights and inspiration from the world’s top entrepreneurs on how to start and build a successful venture.

The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health—and How We Must Adapt

Sinan Aral. Currency, Sept. 15 ($28, ISBN 978-0-525-57451-4)

Aral, an MIT professor who has researched the impact of social media on the U.S., maps out strategies for better harnessing the power of various platforms.

The Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise

Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell. Univ. of Chicago, Oct. 6 ($27.50, ISBN 978-0-226-73952-6)

Economists Rozelle and Hell argue that though China is the world’s second-largest economy, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country, which has serious implications for China and the global economy.

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing

Jacob Goldstein. Hachette, Sept. 8 ($28, ISBN 978-0-316-41719-8)

Goldstein, cohost of the NPR podcast Planet Money, offers an account of how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years.

When More Is Not Better: Overcoming America’s Obsession with Economic Efficiency

Roger L Martin. Harvard Business Review, Sept. 29 ($30, ISBN 978-1-64782-006-0)

Martin argues that America’s fixation on economic efficiency has harmed the poor and middle class while benefiting already-rich Americans.

Where Is My Office? Reimagining the Workplace for the 21st Century

Chris Kane. Bloomsbury, Dec. 22 ($35, ISBN 978-1-4729-7868-4)

Kane provides a guide for business leaders and others who are looking to ensure their work-space management is aligned with the needs of their business and employees.

Listings

Abrams Image

How to Build a Goddamn Empire: Advice on Creating Your Brand with High-Tech Smarts, Elbow Grease, Infinite Hustle, and a Whole Lotta Heart by Ali Kriegsman (Sept. 15, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-4290-3) distills the lessons Kriegsman learned after cofounding Bulletin, a fast-growing retail technology company.

Adams Media

Money Hacks: 300+ Ways to Decrease Spending, Increase Savings, and Make Your Money Work for You! by Lisa Rowan (Sept. 22, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5072-1407-7) presents 300 solutions to popular personal finance questions, from paying off student loans to managing investments.

Benbella

The Soul-Sourced Entrepreneur: An Unconventional Success Plan for the Highly Creative, Secretly Sensitive, and Wildly Ambitious by Christine Kane (Nov. 17, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-950665-44-0). Kane, the founder of an entrepreneur coaching company, shares insights into how entrepreneurs can build successful companies without being aggressive or data-obsessed.

Bloomsbury Business

Belonging: The Key to Transforming and Maintaining Diversity, Inclusion and Equality at Work by Sue Unerman, Kathryn Jacob, and Mark Edwards (Jan. 19, $30, ISBN 978-1-4729-7961-2) is an investigation into diversity and equality in the workplace that argues more men need to be active participants in the process in order for meaningful progress to be made.

Career

Unfiltered Marketing: 5 Rules to Win Back Trust, Credibility, and Customers in a Digitally Distracted World by Stephen Denny and Paul Leinberger (Nov. 1, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63265-178-5). Consultants Denny and Leinberger provide a playbook for managers and for anyone interested in the ever-changing interaction between technology and culture.

Columbia Business School

Common Sense: The Investor’s Guide to Equality, Opportunity, and Growth by Joel Greenblatt (Sept. 8, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-231-19890-5) offers an investor’s perspective on how to build an economy that can work for everyone.

One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games by Joost Van Dreunen (Oct. 6, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-231-19752-6) provides an analysis of the major drivers behind the innovation and strategies of the video games industry and explains how it has gone from the fringe to being a billion-dollar business.

Columbia Univ.

What Really Counts: The Case for a Sustainable and Equitable Economy by Ronald Colman (Jan. 26, $30, ISBN 978-0-231-19098-5) details the challenges to devising new metrics that can shift how the health of a nation’s economy is determined, from policy priorities focused on a narrow economic agenda toward a future built on sustainability and equity.

Currency

Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas (Oct. 6, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-13528-0). The authors teach the course titled Humor: Serious Business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and draw on their experiences to reveal how humor works and how readers can make better use of it in their business relationships.

The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most by Lee Vinsel and Andrew L Russell (Sept. 8, $28, ISBN 978-0-525-57568-9). The authors argue that the ideology of change for its own sake has proved a disaster and offer a plan for shifting focus back toward activities like maintenance, care, and upkeep.

Dey Street

The Hidden Habits of Genius: Beyond Talent, IQ, and Grit—Unlocking the Secrets of Greatness by Craig Wright (Oct. 6, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-289271-3). The creator of Yale University’s Genius Course explores what can be learned from brilliant minds that have changed the world.

ECW

Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West by Ethan Lou (Oct. 27, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77041-539-3) provides an in-depth account of what it is like to work in the bitcoin business, where rules seem to change every day.

Grand Central

Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms by Shellye Archambeau (Oct. 6, $28, ISBN 978-1-5387-0289-5). One of the tech industry’s first female African American CEOs provides practical strategies, tools, and approaches readers can use to get ahead in their careers; foreword by Ben Horowitz.

Harper Business

Hacking Humans by Christopher Hadnagy (Jan. 12, $32.50, ISBN 978-0-06-300178-7). Hadnagy lays out ways to make it easier to forge connections with others.

Mission Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato (Jan. 12, $29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-304623-8) argues that capitalism needs to be fundamentally changed to become inclusive, sustainable, and driven by innovation.

Holt

Betting on You: How to Put Yourself First and (Finally) Take Control of Your Career by Laurie Ruettimann (Jan. 5, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-250-26980-5). A former human resources manager provides advice for improving readers’ day-to-day lives while also laying the groundwork for a fulfilling future.

Icon

How to Fix Meetings: Meet Less, Focus on Outcomes and Get Stuff Done by Graham Allcott and Hayley Watts (Nov. 10, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78578-475-0) shows how to reduce the amount of time employees spend in meetings and lays out ways to make meetings more effective.

Kogan Page

High-Tech High-Touch Recruiting: How to Attract and Retain the Best Talent by Improving the Candidate Experience by Barbara Bruno (Sept. 29, $25.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78966-515-4) outlines strategies for using high-tech tools and high-touch relationship-building skills to find the best employees.

Success After Service: How to Take Control of Your Job Search and Career After Military Duty by Lida Citroën (Oct. 27, $25.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78966-593-2) delivers a set of strategies, resources, and steps for building a meaningful, deliberate, and rewarding postmilitary career.

McGraw-Hill

Making Work Human: How Human-Centered Companies Are Changing the Future of Work and the World by Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine (Oct. 6, $28, ISBN 978-1-260-46420-7). Mosley and Irvine, who are on the leadership team of the management platform Workhuman, show how to implement a culture of performance and gratitude in the workplace.

Melville House

Money from Nothing: Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying about Debt and Learn to Love the Federal Reserve by Aaron James and Robert Hockett (Sept. 15, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-61219-856-9). The authors provide a new vision of money and public finance intended to reduce the wealth gap, using such strategies as having the Federal Reserve put money directly into the bank account of every citizen.

MIT

The Ends Game: How Smart Companies Stop Selling Products and Start Delivering Value by Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg (Sept. 8, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-262-04434-9) describes how some firms are changing business models and, instead of selling products and services, are adopting new revenue models to pursue actual outcomes.

Wine Economics by Stefano Castriota (Nov. 3, $55, ISBN 978-0-262-04467-7) explores how wine markets operate and how they are regulated, covering such topics as the health economics of wine consumption and the quality of wine.

ONE World

Them and Us: How Immigrants and Locals Can Thrive Together by Philippe Legrain (Sept. 3, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-78607-790-5) sets out to close the gap between the myth and reality of immigration’s impact on the American economy and makes the case for the benefits of immigration.

Oxford Univ.

International Trade: What Everyone Needs to Know by Anne O. Krueger (Sept. 1, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-19-090045-8). In this introduction to the key aspects of international trade policy, Krueger, a former World Bank chief economist, explains what trade does and does not do, and why trade issues are so difficult to solve.

The Russian Economy: A Very Short Introduction by Richard Connolly (Sept. 1, $11.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-19-884890-5) looks to demystify the Russian economy, which is sometimes dismissed by Western experts but remains one of the world’s largest.

Penguin Press

The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin (Sept. 15, $38, ISBN 978-1-59420-643-6). Pulitzer Prize–winner Yergin offers an account of how energy revolutions, climate battles, and geopolitics are mapping the future.

Portfolio

Conscious Leadership: Elevating Humanity Through Business by John Mackey, Steve McIntosh, and Carter Phipps (Sept. 15, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-08362-8). Whole Foods CEO Mackey and his coauthors follow up bestseller Conscious Capitalism with a take on how to lead a purpose-driven, sustainable business.

Work That Counts: Breaking Down the Barriers to Extraordinary Results by Richard Lee (Oct. 13, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-19146-0) argues that companies should, rather than devote resources to making systemic change in pursuit of improved results, ensure employees are empowered and able to partner in and across teams to leverage their full potential.

Princeton Architectural Press

The Big Leap: A Guide to Freelancing for Creatives by Martina Flor (Sept. 29, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61689-956-1) covers all aspects of starting one’s own business, from skills such as identifying potential clients and pricing projects to big-picture topics like managing time and finances, diversifying income streams, and taking care of oneself.

Princeton Univ.

Outside the Box: How Globalization Changed from Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas by Marc Levinson (Sept. 15, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-691-19176-8) examines how and why globalization is entering a new era, in which moving things will matter much less than moving services, information, and ideas.

PublicAffairs

The Myth of Experience: Why We Learn the Wrong Lessons, and Ways to Correct Them by Emre Soyerk and Robin M. Hogarth (Sept. 1, $28, ISBN 978-1-5417-4205-5). Drawing on concepts of behavioral science and economics, the authors explore why a reliance on experience can hinder individual and societal decision-making.

Random House

Ages of American Capitalism by Jonathan Levy (Jan. 19, $30, ISBN 978-0-8129-9501-5). An economic historian traces the evolution of American capitalism from the colonial era through the 2008 crash, and argues the economy is at another turning point.

Regnery Capital

Maximize Your Social Security by Bob Carlson (Jan. 5, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-68451-050-4). The editor of the website Retirement Watch provides a guide for Americans aged 60 to 66 on how to navigate Social Security.

She Writes

She Is Me: How Women Will Save the World by Lori Sokol (Aug. 11, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63152-715-9). Journalist Sokol shares the stories of 35 women who have used compassion, empathy, introspection, and solidarity to create change and transform lives.

Simon & Schuster

Becoming a Nurse by Sonny Kleinfield (Aug. 18, $18, ISBN 978-1-982142-41-4). Former New York Times reporter Kleinfield goes inside a hectic ER to demonstrate how nurses rise to the top of their field, following them through nursing school and clinical rotations to on-the-job realities like dealing with trauma and death.

How to Lead: Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers by David M. Rubenstein (Sept. 1, $30, ISBN 978-1-982132-15-6). Rubenstein—author of The American Story, cofounder of the Carlyle Group, and host of The David Rubenstein Show—distills conversations he has had with well-known business and entertainment executives.

Simple Truths

Friday Forward: Inspiration & Motivation to End Your Week Stronger Than It Started by Robert Glazer (Oct. 1, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-72823-043-6). Author and entrepreneur Glazer’s weekly notes to his team has turned into a global movement, and he shares 52 of his favorite stories.

Skyhorse

12 Lessons in Business Leadership: Insights from the Championship Career of Tom Brady by Kevin Daum and Anne Mary Ciminelli (Sept. 1, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-5107-5373-0) analyzes the leadership abilities of six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, and translates them into lessons applicable to any business career.

Sounds True

Winging It: Stop Thinking, Start Doing: Why Action Beats Planning Every Time by Emma Isaacs (Sept. 15, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-68364-690-7) urges women to stop hiding behind the safe option or looking for the perfect plan and instead to take action.

St. Martin’s

The Character Edge: Leading and Winning with Integrity by Robert L. Caslen Jr. and Michael Matthews (Oct. 13, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-25908-0). Caslen, a former West Point superintendent, and Matthews, a psychologist, argue that all successful leaders have a foundation of strong character.

Ten Speed

Finding Work You Love: 3 Steps to Getting the Perfect Job After College by Kirk Snyder (Aug. 18, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-984856-67-8). A business professor at the University of Southern California introduces the Working You system he teaches, which is designed to help people identify the strengths they bring to the job market.

Yale Univ.

Better Business: How the B Corp Movement Is Remaking Capitalism by Christopher Marquis (Sept. 13, $28.50, ISBN 978-0-300-24715-2) explores why the rise of the B Corporation—companies that commit to putting social benefits and environmental stewardship on an equal footing with shareholders—is a good thing for the U.S.

The Cost of Free Money: How Unfettered Capital Threatens Our Economic Future by Paola Subacchi (Aug. 4, $30, ISBN 978-0-300-24404-5) examines why the current climate of economic collaboration may be about to collapse.

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