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Books That Shaped Great Minds

Explore the reading lists of thinkers, founders, artists, and writers. Discover what shaped the people you admire.

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the United States

HistoryPhilosophyPoetry
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Elements
The Pilgrim's Progress
Robinson Crusoe

5 books

Ada Lovelace

Mathematician & Computing Pioneer

ScienceTechnologyHistory
Frankenstein
Don Juan
Elements
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

5 books

Albert Camus

Novelist & Philosopher

FictionPhilosophyEssays
The Stranger
The Myth of Sisyphus
The Brothers Karamazov
The Plague

6 books

Albert Einstein

Theoretical Physicist

SciencePhilosophyHistory
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
Ethics
A Treatise of Human Nature
The World as Will and Representation

5 books

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Aviator & Author

FictionPhilosophyMemoir
The Little Prince
Wind, Sand and Stars
Night Flight
War and Peace

5 books

Aristotle

Philosopher & Polymath

PhilosophyScienceHistory
Nicomachean Ethics
Politics
Poetics
The Republic

6 books

Ayn Rand

Novelist & Philosopher

FictionPhilosophyBusiness
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
Nicomachean Ethics
Les Misérables

5 books

Barack Obama

44th President of the United States

HistoryFictionMemoir
Song of Solomon
Gilead
The Power Broker
Self-Reliance

6 books

bell hooks

Scholar & Cultural Critic

Social JusticePhilosophyEssays
All About Love
Ain't I a Woman
The Second Sex
The Fire Next Time

5 books

Benjamin Franklin

Polymath & Founding Father

ScienceHistoryPhilosophy
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Spectator
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Plutarch's Lives

5 books

Bertrand Russell

Philosopher & Mathematician

PhilosophyScienceHistory
A History of Western Philosophy
Principia Mathematica
The Problems of Philosophy
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

5 books

Bill Gates

Technologist & Philanthropist

ScienceHistoryBusiness
Factfulness
Educated
The Better Angels of Our Nature
Sapiens

6 books

Carl Sagan

Astronomer & Science Communicator

SciencePhilosophyHistory
The Demon-Haunted World
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Origin of Species
Walden

5 books

Charlie Munger

Investor & Polymath

BusinessSciencePsychology
The Selfish Gene
Influence
Poor Charlie's Almanack
The Wealth of Nations

5 books

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Novelist & Essayist

FictionSocial JusticeEssays
Things Fall Apart
Americanah
Purple Hibiscus
Beloved

5 books

Cleopatra

Pharaoh & Polyglot Scholar

HistoryPhilosophyScience
The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Republic
The Histories

5 books

David Bowie

Musician & Artist

FictionPhilosophyHistory
A Clockwork Orange
The Outsider
Inferno
The Trial

6 books

Elon Musk

Founder of SpaceX & Tesla

TechnologyScienceBusiness
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Foundation
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down
The Lord of the Rings

6 books

Ernest Hemingway

Novelist & Journalist

FictionMemoirEssays
The Old Man and the Sea
A Farewell to Arms
War and Peace
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

5 books

Franz Kafka

Novelist & Short Story Writer

FictionPhilosophyPsychology
The Trial
The Metamorphosis
The Castle
Fear and Trembling

5 books

Frida Kahlo

Painter & Icon

ArtMemoirSocial Justice
The Communist Manifesto
Don Quixote
Walt Whitman: Complete Poetry and Collected Prose
The Diary of Frida Kahlo

5 books

Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosopher

PhilosophyEssaysPoetry
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Beyond Good and Evil
The Birth of Tragedy
The World as Will and Representation

6 books

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Novelist

FictionPhilosophyPsychology
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Notes from Underground
Les Misérables

6 books

Gabriel García Márquez

Nobel Laureate & Novelist

FictionHistoryPoetry
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Metamorphosis
Mrs Dalloway
Pedro Páramo

6 books

Hannah Arendt

Political Theorist

PhilosophyHistorySocial Justice
The Origins of Totalitarianism
Eichmann in Jerusalem
The Human Condition
Being and Time

5 books

Haruki Murakami

Novelist

FictionFantasyMemoir
Norwegian Wood
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Great Gatsby
The Long Goodbye

6 books

Hayao Miyazaki

Filmmaker & Animator

FictionFantasyPhilosophy
The Borrowers
The Earthsea Trilogy
The Little Prince
Howl's Moving Castle

5 books

Hermann Hesse

Nobel Laureate & Novelist

FictionPhilosophyPoetry
Siddhartha
Steppenwolf
The Glass Bead Game
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

5 books

Hypatia

Mathematician & Philosopher

SciencePhilosophyHistory
Elements
The Almagest
Arithmetica
The Republic

5 books

Italo Calvino

Novelist & Fabulist

FictionPhilosophyFantasy
If on a winter's night a traveler
Invisible Cities
Cosmicomics
One Thousand and One Nights

5 books

James Baldwin

Novelist & Essayist

FictionEssaysSocial Justice
Notes of a Native Son
Native Son
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov

5 books

James Clear

Author & Speaker

PsychologyBusinessScience
Atomic Habits
Meditations
The Power of Habit
Thinking, Fast and Slow

5 books

Jane Austen

Novelist

FictionHistoryEssays
Pride and Prejudice
Emma
The History of Tom Jones
Cecilia

5 books

Jane Goodall

Primatologist & Conservationist

ScienceMemoirSocial Justice
In the Shadow of Man
The Story of Doctor Dolittle
Tarzan of the Apes
The Origin of Species

5 books

Jean-Paul Sartre

Philosopher & Playwright

PhilosophyFictionEssays
Being and Nothingness
Nausea
Being and Time
The Phenomenology of Spirit

6 books

Joan Didion

Journalist & Essayist

EssaysMemoirFiction
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
The Year of Magical Thinking
Heart of Darkness
A Farewell to Arms

5 books

Jorge Luis Borges

Writer & Librarian

FictionPhilosophyFantasy
Ficciones
One Thousand and One Nights
The Divine Comedy
Don Quixote

6 books

Leonardo da Vinci

Polymath & Artist

ArtScienceDesign
Natural History
On Architecture
Elements
The Divine Comedy

5 books

Mahatma Gandhi

Independence Leader & Philosopher

PhilosophyHistorySocial Justice
The Bhagavad Gita
Unto This Last
Civil Disobedience
The Kingdom of God Is Within You

5 books

Malcolm X

Civil Rights Leader & Orator

HistorySocial JusticeMemoir
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Wretched of the Earth
Souls of Black Folk
The Story of Civilization

5 books

Marcus Aurelius

Roman Emperor & Philosopher

PhilosophyHistoryPsychology
Meditations
Discourses
Letters from a Stoic
The Iliad

5 books

Marie Curie

Physicist & Nobel Laureate

ScienceHistoryMemoir
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
On the Origin of Species
Physics
Positivist Philosophy

5 books

Mark Twain

Author & Humorist

FictionEssaysHistory
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Don Quixote

5 books

Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil Rights Leader

HistoryPhilosophySocial Justice
Stride Toward Freedom
Civil Disobedience
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
Moral Man and Immoral Society

6 books

Maya Angelou

Poet & Memoirist

PoetryMemoirSocial Justice
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
A Tale of Two Cities
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Phenomenal Woman

5 books

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Scholar & Risk Analyst

PhilosophyBusinessScience
The Black Swan
Antifragile
Meditations
Essays

6 books

Naval Ravikant

Entrepreneur & Philosopher

PhilosophyBusinessScience
Sapiens
The Beginning of Infinity
Siddhartha
The Lessons of History

6 books

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist & Science Communicator

ScienceHistoryPhilosophy
Cosmos
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
A Brief History of Time
The Demon-Haunted World

5 books

Nelson Mandela

Anti-Apartheid Leader & President

HistorySocial JusticeMemoir
Long Walk to Freedom
Invictus
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Wretched of the Earth

5 books

Nikola Tesla

Inventor & Electrical Engineer

ScienceTechnologyPhilosophy
My Inventions
Faust
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
The Works of Voltaire

5 books

Noam Chomsky

Linguist & Public Intellectual

PhilosophySocial JusticeHistory
Manufacturing Consent
Syntactic Structures
On Liberty
Homage to Catalonia

5 books

Octavia E. Butler

Science Fiction Pioneer

FictionFantasySocial Justice
Kindred
Parable of the Sower
The Left Hand of Darkness
Invisible Man

5 books

Oprah Winfrey

Media Leader & Philanthropist

MemoirFictionSocial Justice
To Kill a Mockingbird
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A New Earth
The Color Purple

5 books

Pablo Neruda

Poet & Diplomat

PoetrySocial JusticeMemoir
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Canto General
Leaves of Grass
One Hundred Years of Solitude

5 books

Paul Graham

Essayist & Y Combinator Co-founder

TechnologyEssaysPhilosophy
The Dream Machine
Microbe Hunters
A Writer's Journey
On Writing Well

5 books

Peter Thiel

Venture Capitalist & Contrarian Thinker

BusinessPhilosophyTechnology
Zero to One
The Girard Reader
The Sovereign Individual
The Straussian Moment

5 books

Rabindranath Tagore

Poet & Nobel Laureate

PoetryPhilosophyFiction
Gitanjali
The Home and the World
The Upanishads
Siddhartha

5 books

Rachel Carson

Marine Biologist & Author

ScienceSocial JusticeEssays
Silent Spring
The Sea Around Us
The Origin of Species
Walden

5 books

Ray Bradbury

Author & Visionary

FictionFantasyScience
Fahrenheit 451
The Martian Chronicles
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Moby Dick

5 books

Richard Feynman

Physicist & Science Educator

ScienceMemoirPhilosophy
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Principia Mathematica
The Character of Physical Law

5 books

Ryan Holiday

Author & Stoic Advocate

PhilosophyBusinessPsychology
Meditations
The Obstacle Is the Way
Letters from a Stoic
The 48 Laws of Power

6 books

Simone de Beauvoir

Philosopher & Feminist

PhilosophyFictionSocial Justice
The Second Sex
Being and Nothingness
The Phenomenology of Spirit
The Mandarins

5 books

Stephen Hawking

Theoretical Physicist

SciencePhilosophyHistory
A Brief History of Time
Principia Mathematica
On the Origin of Species
The Grand Design

5 books

Steve Jobs

Co-founder of Apple

TechnologyDesignPhilosophy
Autobiography of a Yogi
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Diet for a Small Planet
The Innovator's Dilemma

6 books

Sun Tzu

Military Strategist

HistoryPhilosophyBusiness
The Art of War
Tao Te Ching
The Book of Five Rings
The I Ching

5 books

Susan Sontag

Critic & Essayist

EssaysPhilosophyHistory
Against Interpretation
The Magic Mountain
In Search of Lost Time
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

5 books

Sylvia Plath

Poet & Novelist

PoetryFictionMemoir
Ariel
The Bell Jar
Mrs Dalloway
The Great Gatsby

5 books

Tim Ferriss

Author & Podcaster

BusinessPsychologyScience
The 4-Hour Workweek
Seneca's Letters
Tribe of Mentors
Tools of Titans

6 books

Toni Morrison

Nobel Laureate & Novelist

FictionSocial JusticeHistory
Beloved
Things Fall Apart
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Bluest Eye

5 books

Ursula K. Le Guin

Novelist & Essayist

FictionFantasyPhilosophy
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Earthsea Trilogy
The Dispossessed
Tao Te Ching

5 books

Virginia Woolf

Novelist & Essayist

FictionEssaysPhilosophy
Mrs Dalloway
To the Lighthouse
A Room of One's Own
Ulysses

6 books

W.E.B. Du Bois

Scholar & Civil Rights Pioneer

HistorySocial JusticeEssays
The Souls of Black Folk
Black Reconstruction in America
The Communist Manifesto
The Phenomenology of Spirit

5 books

Winston Churchill

Statesman & Nobel Laureate

HistoryMemoirEssays
The History of the English-Speaking Peoples
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
My Early Life
The Second World War

5 books