Best in Business Book Awards

The Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) announced the winners and finalists for its fourth annual Best in Business Book Awards, which recognizes and celebrates outstanding business journalism in books published between August 1, 2022, and July 31, 2023.

The book, Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Streetwritten by Victor Luckerson and published by Random House, was chosen as the winner in the “Business Reporting” category, sponsored by Investopedia.

Built from the Fire, the tale of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, is a well-researched gem. Highly readable, it covers the breadth of the story, not just that terrible event in 1921, when an angry white mob descended upon Greenwood, destroying thirty-five blocks. In Luckerson’s capable hands, the book becomes a family saga as well as a business lesson in vision and fortitude,” said Marty Steffens, SABEW Chair in business and financial journalism at the University of Missouri and team lead of the Business Reporting judging team.

Judges also selected two finalists from the category: These are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner (published by Simon & Schuster), and Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams (published by Penguin Press).

In the “Investing and Personal Finance” category, sponsored by Yahoo! FinanceThe Phoenix Economy: Work, Life, and Money in the New Not Normal, written by Felix Salmon and published by HarperCollins Publishers, won.

Alan Deutschman, SABEW board member, Best in Business Book Award co-chair, professor and Reynolds Endowed Chair of Business Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, led the Investing and Personal Finance judging team. The judges said of the winner, “The Phoenix Economy isn’t a typical book about investing—it won’t advise you on what stocks to pick or how to figure out your Social Security benefits. Instead, it’s an expertly reported and thoughtful analysis of how the pandemic changed our underlying psychology about money and investing, especially for the rising generation that came of age during the disruption.”

The two finalists selected in the category were: Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track by Mark Miller (published by Agate Publishing), and How to Invest: Masters of the Craft by David M. Rubenstein (published by Simon and Schuster).

This year SABEW added a new category “Management and Leadership.” Credible: The Power of Expert Leaders by Amanda Goodall and published by PublicAffairs won in this category.

Deutschman also led the Management and Leadership judging team. The judges said of the winner, “Even in our first year with this new category, the judges were impressed by the quality and vibrancy of books about management and leadership. The winner, Amanda Goodall’s Credible, is a deeply-researched and passionately-argued case for selecting corporate leaders who are experts in their chosen fields rather than hubristic MBAs who think they can run any organization.”

The two finalists selected in the category were: Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism by Rick Wartzman (published by PublicAffairs), and How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner (published by Currency, Penguin Random House).

SABEW will organize a program with the winning authors of this year’s competition.

SABEW is the world’s largest and oldest organization of business and financial journalists. The winners and finalists were chosen from SABEW’s shortlist by a prestigious panel of judges. Thanks to the authors and publishers who entered this year’s award competition and to the sponsors Investopedia and Yahoo! Finance.

For more information on the awards, contact Tess McLaughlin, tmclaughlin@sabew.org.


Past Winners



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