Ghosts of financial crises past, present and future haunt this year’s array of new business books. Many of the 200 or so titles submitted for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award this year could have been divided into three categories: how it happened; how to avoid it happening again; and how it happened before (but nobody remembered).

The cataclysms of the past two years will fuel publishers’ lists of business books well into 2010 – and we may have to wait even longer for a definitive account. But, as Lynda Gratton of London Business School – who joins the panel of judges this year – pointed out at the May launch of the prize, good timing is more important than ever this year. “If you write a book that is published right now that is optimistic, then people will say: ‘It’s far too optimistic.’ If you write something about recession that comes out even in September, people will say: ‘How goddamn boring is that?’”