Peering into someone’s bookshelf is like getting a glimpse into the inner workings of their mind. The books someone cites as their favorites can say a lot about who they are. “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle? You’re spiritual and introspective. “The Rational Optimist” by Matt Ridley? Analytical and business minded. “Bossypants” by Tina Fey? You don’t take yourself too seriously.
Famous entrepreneurs and thought leaders in particular, often regard reading as an essential habit to success. Founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, read 50 books a year, while Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, read at least 10 hours a day.
To take a peek into their brilliant minds, here are the bookshelves and favorite books of 10 famously successful individuals.
Elon Musk
Originally from South Africa, Elon Musk is a serial inventor and entrepreneur. Notable companies he has founded include PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX. His reading habits are slightly unusual: he says that he prefers to read books on his iPhone.
His favorite books are:
The Lord of the Rings by. J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by. Douglas Adams
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by. Walter Isaacson
Einstein: His Life and Universe by. Walter Isaacson
Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down by. J.E. Gordon
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook from his Harvard dorm room in 2003. In order to promote reading, Zuckerberg started an online book club called the “A Year of Books” in 2015. He made book recommendations every two weeks through his Facebook account, offering a total of 23 options.
His favorite books are:
Why Nations Fail by. Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson
The Rational Optimist by. Matt Ridley
Portfolios of the Poor by. Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Arlanda Ruthven
The Three-Body Problem by. Liu Cixin
Genome by. Matt Ridley
Bill Gates
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is well known for his proclivity for reading. He releases a new list of his favorite books annually, and reads at least one book every week. In 2017, Gates shared with Time magazine that reading was “absolutely essential to success.”
His favorite books are:
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by. Steven Pinker
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by. Elizabeth Kolbert
The Man Who Fed the World by. Leon Hesser
Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by. John Brooks
The Vital Question by. Nick Lane
Jeff Bezos
When Amazon debuted in 1994, it was known as an online marketplace for selling books. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Jeff Bezos is well read. According to his biographer, he claims to learn more from reading fictional novels, like his top pick “The Remains of the Day”, than non-fiction.
His favorite books are:
The Remains of the Day by. Kazuo Ishiguro
Sam Walton: Made in America by. Sam Walton
Memos from the Chairman by. Alan Greenberg
The Mythical Man-Month by. Frederick P Brooks Jr.
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by. Jim Collins
Janet Yellen
Janet Yellen must love what she does, because the economist and former Chair of the Federal Reserve has a book list that matches her resume. The New York Times reported that her vacations to the beach include “a suitcase of economics books”.
Her favorite books are:
The Rise and Fall of American Growth by. Robert Gordon
The Second Machine Age by. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions by. Board of Governors
Gold: The Monetary Polaris by. Nathan Lewis
Capitalism Will Save Us by. Steve Forbes
Gretchin Rubin
Former lawyer and Supreme Court Clerk, Gretchin Rubin is known for her expertise on the subject of human happiness. Her book, “The Happiness Project” was a New York Times Best Seller.
Her favorite books are:
Man’s Search for Meaning by. Viktor Frankl
Jackie Under My Skin by. Wayne Koestenbaum
My Early Life by. Winston Churchill
The Life of Samuel Johnson by. James Boswell
The Habit of Being by. Flannery O’Connor
Sheryl Sandberg
You might be surprised to learn that Sheryl Sandberg, COO of tech company Facebook, prefers physical paperbacks to digital readers. Though she uses an iPad when traveling, she describes her method of traditional reading: “I like holding a book open and being able to leaf through it, highlight with a real yellow pen and dog-ear important pages. After I finish a book, I’ll often look to see how many page corners are turned down as one gauge of how much I liked it.”
Her favorite books are:
A Short Guide to a Happy Life by. Anna Quindlen
Bossypants by. Tina Fey
Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values by. Fred Kofman
Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by. Michael Lewis
Now, Discover Your Strengths by. Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton
Barack Obama
The 44th president of the United States releases a list of his favorite books every year through Twitter. He has said, “reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible, from complex world problems and the meaning of our history to scientific discovery and technological proficiency.”
His favorite books are:
Moby Dick by. Herman Melville
Self-Reliance by. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Song of Solomon by. Toni Morrison
Parting the Waters by. Taylor Branch
Gilead by. Marylinne Robinson
Larry Page
Larry Page was moved to tears by an autobiography of Nikola Tesla that he read when he was 12 (talented inventor Tesla died in penniless obscurity). Page says, “I figured that inventing things wasn’t any good. You really had to get them out into the world and have people use them to get any effect.” The lesson seems to have taken hold – Page is a cofounder of Google, one of the most widely used internet services in the world.
His favorite books are:
My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla by. Nikola Tesla
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by. Richard P. Feynman
What Do You Care What Other People Think? by. Richard P. Feynman
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by. Richard P. Feynman
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by. Richard P. Feynman
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah has said that “nothing, not one thing or activity, can replace the experience of a good read – being transported to a different land, a different realm, through words and language.” Her book club recommended 70 books during its 15 year run.
Her favorite books are:
Discover the Power Within You by. Eric Butterworth
A New Earth by. Eckhart Tolle
The Poisonwood Bible by. Barbara Kingsolver
Night by. Elie Wiesel
A Fine Balance by. Rohinton Mistry
