PRH imprints make up half of Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year shortlist

Penguin Random House (PRH) dominates this year’s Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year shortlist. 

The £30,000 prize is in its 19th year and recognises the “most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues”. Financial Times (FT) editor Roula Khalaf said: “This year’s shortlist covers some of the biggest issues of our time – from the advance of artificial intelligence to the relentless pressure on natural resources – in books that are exceptionally well researched and reported. Selecting finalists from a strong longlist was hard, but the judges have picked six exciting, engaging and important titles that together provide a highly readable guide to the future of business.” 

PRH imprints make up half the shortlist with Ed Conway’s Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future (W H Allen), Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive by Amy Edmondson (Cornerstone Press) and The Coming Wave: AI, Power and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar (The Bodley Head). 

They are joined by How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner (Macmillan), Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster) and Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara (St Martin’s Press).    

Schroders group chief executive Peter Harrison said: “I am delighted that for this first year of our partnership with the FT, we have chosen a shortlist that sheds light on the ways in which business intersects with global economics and politics and that offers solutions to the pressing challenges facing executives and policymakers at a time of profound disruption and uncertainty. These are books that are compelling, enjoyable and, above all, distinguished by writing of the highest quality.”

The winner will be announced on 4th December at an event hosted by Khalaf, Harrison and Nikkei Inc. managing director Daisuke Arakawa.