About The Awards
We Curate The Best
Non-Fiction Books
Of The Year.
The Non-Obvious Book Awards are curated, judged and created for people who love books. Especially non-fiction books.
Our Philosophy
We believe the world would be better if people read more business books.
A welcome from our founder, Rohit Bhargava
How The Awards Work
Curating The Best Books From Thousands Of Submissions
Unlike other industry awards programs, books are not entered into predefined categories and authors or publishers are not charged a fee to enter a book. Rather than creating a profit-making venture, we focus on selecting the very best books of the year and sharing them with our global audience.
The Longlist
Every year we start by selecting a Longlist of our favorite books of the year — selected from hundreds of books submitted every year.
The Shortlist
This is followed by our Shortlist of the top books of the year — the finalists revealed during our live announcement show.
Five Winners
Then we select winners based on five themes — importance, originality, readability, usefulness, and shareability.
Who Enters
Publishers From Around The World
Every year our awards attract entries from a wide diversity of publishers around the world — of all categories and sizes. That includes the Big Five publishers and their many imprints, celebrated university presses, and scores of acclaimed independent and boutique publishing houses.
A selection of the 250+ publishers and imprints whose books have been entered into the Non-Obvious Book Awards.
Amplified By The Best In Business Media
Media Partnerships
Our annual selections don’t just live on this site. Over the years we have teamed up with some of the biggest names in business media to share the best books of the year with millions of readers — including a full media partnership with Inc. magazine to present the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards, and a partnership with Entrepreneur magazine spotlighting the big ideas from each year’s winning books.
About The Founder
Rohit Bhargava
Founder, The Non-Obvious Company · #1 WSJ and USA Today Bestselling Author
Rohit Bhargava is on a mission to inspire more non-obvious thinking in the world. He is the #1 WSJ and USA Today bestselling author of eleven books, founder of the Non-Obvious Company and an adjunct professor of storytelling at Georgetown University. He is widely considered one of the most entertaining and original speakers on trends, innovation and marketing in the world.
Rohit has shared the stage with big personalities like Jay Leno, Elon Musk and will.i.am and been invited to deliver “non-boring” keynotes and workshops in 32 countries around the world to change the way teams and leaders think at the World Bank, NASA, Intel, LinkedIn, Coca-Cola, Disney and hundreds of other well-known organizations. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur and founding the Non-Obvious Company and Ideapress Publishing, he spent 15 years leading marketing strategy at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett where he advised global brands on human behavior, marketing and storytelling.
Outside his speaking and consulting, Rohit has taught persuasive speaking and global marketing as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, is frequently quoted in the global media and has written for Inc, Entrepreneur and GQ magazines. Rohit lives in the Washington DC area with his wife and is a proud dad of two boys. He loves the Olympics (he's been to six!) and actively hates cauliflower.
Learn More About Rohit →Who's Behind This
About The Non-Obvious Company
These awards are organized and judged by the team at the Non-Obvious Company. We believe the world needs more non-obvious thinkers. Our mission is to help leaders, organizations and curious minds learn the habits that allow them to see what others miss and face the unknown. We do this through our published books, popular keynotes, custom workshops, annual book awards and our weekly Non-Obvious Insights Show hosted by our founder Rohit Bhargava.
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