Member-only story
READING
The Best Overlooked Business Books I Read in 2024
Beyond the obvious
I carved out time to read dozens of books this year, many of them new releases about business, the economy and politics, and I’ll be immodest enough to offer up an offbeat best-of list.
A caveat: I’m leaving out the usual suspects. Malcolm Gladwell, Charles Duhigg, Yuval Noah Harari and Bob Woodward published titles this year, all of them characteristically excellent. And I struggled with the definition of overlooked — I put by Jonathan Blitzer on my list, then removed it when the title the New York Times’ Top 10 books of 2024.
The most thought-provoking below-the-radar biz books I read this year:
by Gary Stevenson
In this dark tale, a sharp but troubled trader describes his unlikely climb from East London poverty to stardom on the Citibank trading floor. At 22, Stevenson was still living with his parents whilst working long hours in the city. At 24, he was collecting six-figure bonuses. He was such a natural that the work seemed easy. “The best trading, you do it with your nose,” Stevenson writes. “It smells like stupidity.”
