Amazon released its best-selling books of 2013, and the number one spot did not go to Dan Brown or Sheryl Sandberg or God. No, the book that sold more copies than any other on Amazon this year was written by a man named Tom Rath, a senior scientist at Gallup, the US consultancy known for its public opinion polling.
The book, StrengthsFinder 2.0, is intended to help people identify things they are good at. It’s based primarily around a questionnaire developed by Gallup to pinpoint the strengths of whomever fills it out. But the book also offers some tips for how to put those strengths to use, particularly in the workplace.
StrengthsFinder 2.0 has been among Amazons top 10 best-selling books since it was released in 2007, but this is the first year that it has topped the list.
While StrengthsFinder 2.0 is probably not the most gripping 183 pages of 2013, its success makes a lot of sense. It’s a book that is both about self-assessment and career improvement—a mash-up of things like the Myers-Briggs personality test and Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. On top of that inherent appeal, the Gallup name lends it an air of authority.