Add another one to the list.
The ranks of billionaires, CEOs, and big-name entrepreneurs who have extolled their love of reading seem to be swelling continuously. We’ve known for awhile that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg are voracious readers (who sometimes share recommendations). Now Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has joined the party. In honor of World Book Day, and in response to a challenge from an admirer, Branson took to his blog to list 65 titles he thinks everyone could benefit from reading during their lifetime.
Kicking off with a few childhood classics and going on to cover everything from great novels and autobiography to environmental tomes, the list wanders far beyond the business and self-help fare usually recommended to leaders. If you’re looking to broaden your bookcase, it’s full of great ideas.
- Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak
- Tales of the Unexpected
by Roald Dahl
- George’s Marvelous Medicine
by Roald Dahl
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
- Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
by Dr Seuss
- Peter Pan
by J. M. Barrie
- The Jungle Book
by Rudyard Kipling
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain
- Swallows and Amazons
by Arthur Ransome
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
- Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stephenson
- The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Jurassic Park
by Michael Crichton
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne
- 1984
by George Orwell
- Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
- The Quiet American
by Graham Greene
- The Dice Man
by Luke Rhinehart
- Shantaram
by Gregory Roberts
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
by Tracy Kidder
- The Outermost House
by Henry Beston
- Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
by Jung Chang
- Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege
by Antony Beevor
- The Right Stuff
by Tom Wolfe
- In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
by Nathaniel Philbrick
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
- Travels With Charley
by John Steinbeck
- Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
by Nelson Mandela
- Mao: The Unknown Story
by Jung Chang
- A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
by Jimmy Carter
- No Future Without Forgiveness
by Desmond Tutu
- Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by Dava Sobel
- Mandela’s Way: Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage
by Richard Stengel
- Limitless: Leadership That Endures
by Ajaz Ahmed
- Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
by Adam Grant
- If I Could Tell You Just One Thing: 50 of the World’s Most Remarkable People Pass on Their Best Piece of Advice by Richard Reed
- Remote: Office Not Required
by Jason Fried
- Start With Why
by Simon Sinek
- One Hundred & One Reasons to Get Out of Bed
by Natasha Milne
- Letters to a Stranger: A publishing project in aid of MIND by Various
- Self Belief: The Vision
by Jamal Edwards
- The Meaning of the 21st Century
by James Martin
- Time for New Dreams
by Ben Okri
- Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill
by Matthieu Ricard
- A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking
- The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution
by Frank White
- Beyond the Blue by Jim Campbell
- Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
by Peter Diamandis
- Cosmos
by Carl Sagan
- The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth
by Tim Flannery
- Big World, Small Planet
by Johan Rockstrom and Mattias Klum
- An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It
by Al Gore
- Necker: A Virgin Island
by Russell James
- Lost Ocean
by Johanna Basford
- Arctica: The Vanishing North
by Sebastian Copeland
- In Patagonia
by Bruce Chatwin
- Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
by Jon Krakauer
- The World Without Us
by Alan Weisman
- In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules
by Stacy Perman
- In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
by Michael Pollan
- Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
by Eric Schlosser
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
by Bryan Stevenson
- Lean In
by Sheryl Sandberg
- Ending the War on Drugs
by Various