How to Find Good Business Books
I reflected on my reading journey and became so deeply afflicted by how I haven’t read good business books. There was another problem. The field of business is different than the books related to the term “business”. I wanted to avoid the books written in appeal to the “pop-business” audience.
I didn’t want to read about the “grindset” or surface-level psychology. Business as a field covers topics like “IO theory”, “environmental economics”, “quantitative methods”, and “economic history”. These are the kinds of books I want to read when talking about business books.
The GBB Metric
My solution then is the GBB (Good Business Book) Metric. It is a straightforward metric. I define it as the ratio of citations to Amazon or Goodreads reviews.Because “hidden gems” are vetted by the academic business community in direct contrast to the public reception.
For example, Thinking Fast and Slow would be at ~50,000/500,000. Two magnitudes better than 48 Laws of Power at 500/200,000. A “time-tested” book like Competitive Strategy would be higher than both at 75,000/15,000. The GBB is only a heuristic. However, it can be effective in identifying conceptually rich books to add to your reading list.