National Business Book Award

If you want to read a good Canadian business-related book then these finalists for the 30th annual National Business Book Award offer originality, research, relevance and quality of writing:

Tell Everyone: Why We Share and Why It Matters by Alfred Hermida

“Every day 140 million messages are sent on Twitter and more than 900 million people share more than 80 million stories, links, photos and videos on Facebook. Over an hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. In this new world of media saturation, what do we mean by "the news"? Award-winning professor and veteran BBC journalist Alfred Hermida provides an essential guide to this shifting media landscape. Writing in a journalistic style but with academic rigour, he delves into how our ability to create and share the news is shaping the information we receive.”

Irving vs. Irving: Canada’s Feuding Billionaires and the Stories They Won’t Tell by Jacques Poitras

"They are Canada's third wealthiest family, the fifth-largest private landowner in the U.S.A. They have a monopoly on New Brunswick's English-language print media and billions of dollars in offshore accounts. They are the Irvings. Irving vs. Irving tells the story of how these ambitious, often ruthless entrepreneurs came to dominate the economic and political affairs of Atlantic Canada, and how they learned to love the property that perplexed them most: their media monopoly. The Irvings control of all of New Brunswick's English daily newspapers often allowed the family's business pursuits to escape journalistic scrutiny. Reporter Jacques Poitras uses the empire's media holdings to examine previously untold episodes of this family. Jacques Poitras has been the provincial affairs reporter for CBC News in New Brunswick since 2000"--Provided by publisher.

Spin: How Politics has the Power to Turn Marketing on its Head by Clive Veroni

"In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, Clive Veroni's Spin is a fascinating investigation of how the techniques of political strategists are being applied to the world of consumer marketing. In the early twentieth century political operatives did their work in the backroom, a shady place of secret deals and dark arts… Forward-thinking marketers are now adopting these techniques to convince consumers to buy their products. The strategies being used to influence our choices at the ballot box will soon be used to influence our choices in the grocery store. Drawing on political and marketing stories from North America, Europe, and beyond, Spin gives readers an insider's view of this stunning turnaround."--From publisher.

The winner will be honoured in Toronto on April 16.