Winner to be announced on Monday November 21

The winner of the inaugural Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award will be announced this evening at a gala dinner in London.

The £30,000 prize will be awarded to the book that provides “the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues”. The panel of judges meets today to make the final decision. The name of the winner will be published here at about 9.30pm London time.

The six finalists for the award were named in September. They are:

THE SEARCH: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. By John Battelle. (Portfolio/Nicholas Brealey)

THE WORLD IS FLAT: A Brief History if the Globalized World in the 21st Century. By Thomas Friedman. (Penguin/Allen Lane; Farrar, Strauss Giroux)

FREAKONOMICS: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. By Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner (Penguin/Allen Lane; William Morrow)

FAST SECOND: How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation to Enter and Dominate New Markets. By Constantinos C Markides and Paul A Geroski. (Wiley;Jossey Bass)

THE TRAVELS OF A T-SHIRT IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade. By Pietra Rivoli. (Wiley)

DISNEYWAR: The Battle for the Magic Kingdom. By James B Stewart. (Simon and Schuster).

Judges originally had to consider a confidential “long list” of 17 books, which Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs and one of the judging panel, described as “an impressive library of business literature”.

The shortlisted authors will each receive £5,000.