No person is complete without reading certain books. The most important book may be different for each one of us. For me, it was On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. For someone it may be Shakespeare, for some other the Seven Habits. But everyone has a set of books and at least one book that may have changed / may change the way he thinks. While the following books come to mind, there is no better site which gives a fantastic idea about what books to read to become a better manager or leader than Josh Kaufman’s.

1. Future Shock, Third Wave and Power Shift by Alvin Toffler
2. Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
3. A brief history of Time
4. What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School
5. The seven habits of highly effective people
6. Confidence
7. Freakonomics
8. Books by D H Lawrence / V S Naipal / Nirad C Chowdhary / Nehru / Russell for people who can spare time
9. Sherlock Holmes
10. Brave New World
11. The Mind of the Strategist
12. Execution
13. Built to Last & Good to Great

The list can go on. The point is one starts somewhere and then keeps moving on to read further books based on one’s interest.

But for the executive who does not have time, Josh Kaufman’s prescription of 42 books is quite matchless. Here is the link to his site Josh Kaufman