The best books of 2020, according to Bloomberg | PHOTO GALLERIES

PHOTO GALLERY. Considering the challenges 2020 brought, many of the books business leaders recommend this year are not technically business books at all, or this year: John Barry’s 2004 story of a previous pandemic, The Great Influenza. , was quoted by both Axel Hefer, managing director of Trivago, and David Solomon, president and CEO of Goldman Sachs, who said it was “important to try to help put the pandemic in context.”

Erik Larson’s epic retelling of Winston Churchill’s handling of the 1940 Blitz, The Splendid and the Vile, was a popular choice. “The book speaks of fearless leadership in the darkest hour,” says Jonathan Gray, president and chief operating officer of Blackstone Group. “A powerful lesson for the challenges of 2020”.

Roger Ferguson, President and CEO of TIAA, recommends The Man Who Ran Washington, the biography of James Baker III by Peter Baker and Susan Glasse. Though it’s from a more recent era, Ferguson says, you can still “see the seeds of today’s hyperpartisan politics being planted during this period.”

A year that drew attention to the legacy of racial inequality in America led three people on our list to choose Caste (Caste) by Isabel Wilkerson. Erika James, dean of the Wharton School, says the book’s most alarming conclusion is that “other countries were inspired by the US for their own caste structures,” adding that it was difficult to assimilate, “but I couldn’t help but reading it”.

Not all the selection is so serious. Larry Gagosian, the premier art gallery owner, used the story from Sam Wasson’s film Chinatown to find new meaning in producer Robert Evans’ famous quote that the path to success was to “go for talent.” And Mary Mack, Wells Fargo’s executive director of consumer and small business banking, described Glennon Doyle’s Untamed memoir as “a genuine and empowering boost.” Here are the 20 best books of the year.