Steve Jobs biography: Best business book of the year?

One year after Steve Jobs' death, his biography by Walter Isaacson is now a finalist for the annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award. The book came with Steve Jobs' full cooperation. 

|
Paul Sakuma/AP/File
Copies of the book 'Steve Jobs,' by Walter Isaacson are piled high at a book shop in Menlo Park, Calif.

Steve Jobs' star power continues to shine in the publishing world even one year after his death. Walter Isaacson's authoritative biography of Apple's late founder, written with his full cooperation before his death, is one of six candidates in the eighth annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award.

The book is one of six selected by a distinguished panel of judges for its ability to provide compelling and enjoyable insights into modern business issues.

In addition to Isaacson's landmark work, "Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography" (Simon & Schuster, 2011), the finalists include "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty" (Crown Business, 2012) by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson; and "The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk-Taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust" (The Penguin Press, 2012) by John Coates.

Completing the list are "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power" (The Penguin Press, 2012) by Steve Coll; "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012) by Michael S. Sandel; and "Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence" (Bloomsbury Press), William L. Silber's study of the role played by Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, in American economic history.

The winner, which will be announced in New York City on Nov. 1, will be awarded 30,000 pounds (U.S. $48,749, and each of the remaining shortlisted authors will receive 10,000 pounds.
Previous winners of the award are: Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo for "Poor Economics:  A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty" (2011); Raghuram Rajan for "Fault Lines"(2010); Liaquat Ahamed for "The Lords of Finance"(2009); Mohamed El-Erian for "When Markets Collide"(2008); William D. Cohan for "The Last Tycoons" (2007); James Kynge for "China Shakes the World"(2006); and Thomas Friedman, inaugural award winner in 2005, for "The World is Flat."

 "The quality of submissions this year was outstanding, and we therefore have a very powerful shortlist," said Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times and chairman of the judging panel, which includes Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "It has a strong emphasis on leadership and broader institutional and political issues, reflecting the mood of the world today."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Steve Jobs biography: Best business book of the year?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1005/Steve-Jobs-biography-Best-business-book-of-the-year
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe