Has the backlash arrived? You know, the one against the short-attention-span culture in which thoughts are no more than 140 characters and people read books on their smartphones? For this year’s survey, when we asked a series of authors of current business books to name recent favorites and inspirations, no one offered the usual, “I don’t read business books”; neither did anyone cite The Hunger Games or, heaven forbid, Twilight: Breaking Dawn. This is a serious collection of serious books—works that take on international economic trends, chronicle important lives, and examine the ways in which our minds work. And a few even qualify as holiday vacation reading, if you don’t mind learning something along the way.