Best Inspirational Books: 50 Picks Recommended by CEOs

Viktor Frankl recounts life in the Nazi camps, where prisoners who kept a purpose in view seemed to endure longer, then sets out logotherapy, the idea that meaning comes from work, love or suffering borne with dignity. Simon Sinek points to it for anyone thinking about purpose.

Paulo Coelho’s fable follows Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd who dreams of treasure at the Egyptian pyramids and sets out to pursue what a mysterious king calls his Personal Legend. Joel Gascoigne credits it with making him dream bigger and follow his instincts instead of settling.

Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel follows Howard Roark, a young architect thrown out of school who refuses to bend his designs to an establishment that prizes conformity. Garrett Moon, a creator who tends to think against the grain, says he loves it.

Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon in the last year of his residency, learned he had stage IV lung cancer and wrote about crossing from doctor to patient, becoming a father and what gives a life meaning as time runs out. Bill Gates marveled that he had the strength to write it.

After a heart attack, cancer and a stroke, Clayton Christensen applied business strategy models to personal questions of career satisfaction, family relationships and integrity. Iulia Ghita says it showed her that holding to principles every time is easier than holding to them almost every time.

Ron Chernow traces how Hamilton, an illegitimate and mostly self-taught boy from the Caribbean, became Washington’s aide, a Federalist leader and the first Treasury Secretary. John Ciancutti calls it hugely inspiring, the story of a young immigrant who overcame adversity to become a founder.

Daniel James Brown follows a Depression-era University of Washington crew of loggers’ and farmers’ sons to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, centered on Joe Rantz, who was left by his family to fend for himself. Bre Pettis sums up its lesson as rowing together, and Satya Nadella has recommended it.

Kahlil Gibran’s prose poems give the parting words of Almustafa, a prophet about to sail home, on love, work, children, joy, sorrow, freedom and death. Naval Ravikant ranks it with the great religious texts while finding it approachable and non-denominational.

Hermann Hesse’s short novel follows a Brahmin’s son in the time of the Buddha who walks away from home to seek enlightenment, first as a wandering ascetic. Thomas Graziani rates it as likely the most influential book he has read, and James Clear recommends it.

Tara Westover grew up in a survivalist family in the Idaho mountains and first sat in a classroom at 17, then went on to Brigham Young, Harvard and a Cambridge doctorate. Michelle Obama calls it a fresh look at what education can do and at how grit shapes a life.

Nelson Mandela tells his own life, from a boyhood tied to Thembu royalty through organizing resistance to apartheid and a quarter century behind bars to his release in 1990. Barack Obama and Richard Branson both put it on their reading lists.

Trevor Noah’s essays recall a mixed race childhood under apartheid, where his parents’ relationship was illegal, and center on his fearless and devout mother, Patricia. Bill Gates enjoyed seeing how a lifetime of not quite fitting in shaped Noah’s outsider comedy.

Alfred Lansing tells how the Endurance was trapped and crushed by Antarctic ice and how its crew of 28 survived on drifting floes and in small open boats under Shackleton. Morgan Housel sees it as his top case of what people can endure when the stakes are high.

Garth Stein’s novel is narrated by Enzo, a dog who hopes to return as a man and who learns from his owner, Seattle race car driver Denny Swift, that the lessons of the track apply to all of life. AnneMarie Schindler names it her favorite book outside business.

Hollywood producer Brian Grazer credits curiosity for his rise and describes decades of conversations with spies, scientists, royals and artists that fed films such as Apollo 13 and 8 Mile. Eric Schmidt endorses its argument that curiosity is the way to a bigger life.

Scott Harrison walked away from a decade of New York nightlife, served on a hospital ship in West Africa and, with no money or experience, started charity: water. Michael Bloomberg recommends it to anyone hoping to switch careers or change the world.

Lawyer Bryan Stevenson recounts founding the Equal Justice Initiative and fighting for Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death for a murder he insisted he had not committed. Brene Brown calls it a summons to personal and collective courage and says his work changed her.

Facing terminal pancreatic cancer, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch gave a talk on achieving childhood dreams and, with Jeffrey Zaslow, turned it into lessons for his three young children. Andrew Huberman counts it among his favorite books.

Richard Bach’s fable is about a gull who would rather perfect his flying than fight over food and keeps chasing faster flight, which sets him against his flock. Benjamin Spall took from it permission to go against conventional wisdom, and Peter Attia would hand it to young people.

Benjamin Franklin’s unfinished account of his own life, begun as a guide for his son, follows him from a Boston printing apprenticeship to running the Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia. Joel Gascoigne found a great deal of wisdom in it alongside the story of the life.

Cheryl Strayed’s collected Dear Sugar columns answer letters about love and life with stories from her own past, so they read as much like memoir as advice. Mark Manson praises the replies as vulnerable and poignant, and Ryan Holiday found insight in them on pain and loss.

Yoga teacher Seane Corn mixes her own story of healing from childhood trauma and OCD with spiritual teaching meant to help readers find their purpose and act for change. Larry David calls it direct, honest and funny.

Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn travel through Africa and Asia telling the stories of women facing trafficking, maternal death and denied schooling, and argue that education and microcredit can turn oppression into opportunity. Julia Enthoven says it greatly changed her view of the world.

Elizabeth Gilbert explores the sources of inspiration and how to keep making creative work despite fear, mixing spiritual ideas with practical daily habits. Mark Manson, who read it while preparing his first book, says he enjoyed it far more than he expected.

Astronaut Scott Kelly looks back on a record year in orbit on the space station, from isolation and the toll on his body back to his rough New Jersey childhood. Anoop Anthony says it led him to wonder if commercial work can have a higher purpose.

Rainer Maria Rilke’s ten letters to a 19-year-old cadet torn between poetry and the army decline to judge his poems and urge him instead to trust his own inner judgment. Todd Henry reads it as mentorship for young artists.

Henry David Thoreau draws on two years in a cabin he built beside Walden Pond to argue for simple, self-reliant living, using the seasons as a picture of human growth. Codie Sanchez urges people to read it.

David Goggins survived poverty, prejudice and an abusive father, then remade himself into a Navy SEAL and record-setting endurance athlete who argues most people tap only about 40 percent of their capacity. Joe Rogan calls him a being of pure will.

Thi Bui’s graphic memoir follows her parents through the Vietnam War and their escape to the United States as refugees, a story she pieced together while becoming a mother herself. Bill Gates calls it a very personal look at being both a parent and a refugee.

Yoga teacher Jennifer Pastiloff writes about losing her father at eight, years of depression and waitressing, near deafness and the leap to leading her own retreats. Cheryl Strayed says the memoir both consoled and inspired her.

Congressman John Lewis tells his civil rights story as a graphic novel, from his rural Alabama youth to his first meeting with Dr. King and the nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins against segregation. Tim Cook has recommended it.

After two decades at Harpo Studios, Sheri Salata, nearing 57 and neglecting everything but work, applied her television makeover approach to herself. Elizabeth Gilbert calls it an honest, funny road map for transformation.

Jacqueline Novogratz traces her path from banking to fighting poverty, sparked by spotting a sweater she once donated on a boy in Rwanda, and argues for patient capital over traditional charity. Seth Godin calls it a classic that keeps changing lives.

Jim Ziolkowski left corporate finance at twenty-five to found buildOn, which turns inner-city teenagers into volunteers and builds schools in countries such as Nepal and Haiti. Seth Godin holds up his story as what happens when people step up and keep their word.

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen gathered stories of ordinary people counting blessings and overcoming hardship, a collection big publishers turned down before a small press took it on. Alan Pierce reads it when busyness crowds out family, friends and health.

Neurosurgeon James R. Doty recalls how, as a poor twelve-year-old with an alcoholic father, he met a woman in a magic shop whose exercises eased his suffering and later shaped his Stanford research on compassion. Roxana Bitoleanu recommends it to young people.

J. K. Rowling’s Harvard commencement speech, drawn from the hard years after her own graduation, makes the case for the benefits of failure and the power of imagination to improve lives. Sujan Patel thinks entrepreneurs will value what she says about failing.

Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm gathers 108 short, wry stories from his own life and from folk tales to help with love, fear, pain and the other trials of ordinary life. Gunhee Park recommends it as spiritual reading full of brief lessons.

Ashlee Vance’s business biography follows Musk from a rough South African childhood through Zip2 and PayPal to Tesla and SpaceX. Richard Branson admires the subject as a risk taker undaunted by setbacks, and Andrea Loubier found the story visionary in her first years as a founder.

Phil Knight’s memoir is mainly the business story of Nike, from fifty dollars borrowed from his father and shoes sold out of a car trunk through years of risk and hostile bankers. Bill Gates values how candidly it shows that business success is messy, precarious and full of mistakes.

Tim Ferriss collects the routines, habits and favorite books of the top performers he interviewed, so it is more practical playbook than story, yet its portraits work as inspiration. Armina Sirbu describes it that way, and James Altucher keeps it on his floor to read a page at a time.

The private notebooks of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius are Stoic philosophy rather than a life story, returning to death, anger, duty and a focus on what lies within one’s own control. Ryan Holiday sees in them the man who ruled Rome urging himself to be better, more just and wiser.

Tony Hsieh’s book is mostly a business memoir, from an earthworm scheme at nine and LinkExchange to running Zappos, arguing that a company built on culture and happiness can still post strong results. Gunhee Park calls it a big inspiration for building a company around customer experience.

Austin Kleon’s illustrated guide is mainly about the creative process, arguing that all new work remixes earlier work and urging side projects and sharing in public. Armina Sirbu says it lifted her out of a spell of impostor syndrome by showing she did not need to be a genius.

Mainly a set of comic anecdotes, Richard P. Feynman’s memoir covers safecracking, samba, painting and the Manhattan Project while showing a physicist who questioned every assumption. Dave Child says it rekindled his enthusiasm for science.

Sam Walton tells, with John Huey, how a single small-town dime store grew into Wal-Mart, mixing business rules with his values of hard work, honesty, neighborliness and thrift. Doug McMillon says he goes back to it often.

Anne Lamott’s guide is mainly about the craft of writing, built on her father’s advice to tackle a daunting task one piece at a time, but Ryan Holiday reads it as a book about handling life’s problems and temptations. Tim Ferriss gives copies to everyone.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt tests ten ideas from thinkers such as Plato, Buddha and Jesus against modern research, picturing the conscious self as a rider steering an elephant, so it is mainly about happiness and meaning. Mark Manson praises how it joins ancient philosophy with modern psychology.

A posthumous collection of Richard P. Feynman’s talks and essays, including his Caltech cargo cult science speech and his Challenger minority report, it is mainly about science and the joy of curiosity. Larry Page has recommended it.

Haruki Murakami’s memoir of training for marathons and an ultramarathon is mainly about running and how it feeds his writing, back to the day he decided to try a novel. Cal Newport recommends it for anyone doing much creative work.