The origin story of Nike told by its founder Phil Knight. Knight borrowed fifty dollars in 1963 to buy shoes that he could sell from the boot of his car. He went on to build Nike into the global business and brand it is today. Shoe Dog tells the story of that journey in a candid memoir that is as much a riveting read as it is an illuminating education on what it takes to succeed as a businessman and an entrepreneur.

As far as memoirs go, this one is a page-turner. It goes to Lori Gottlieb’s incredible writing ability that she has turned what could have been a dry subject (I mean, who would want to read about therapy sessions?) into an absolutely amazing read – not just entertaining, but emotionally gripping and thought-provoking. I ended the book with a better understanding of how humans grow and develop, how we process emotions and a deeper appreciation of the “work” we need to do to realize our potential as human beings.

The less visible side of leadership is risk-taking. The ability to make decisions about an uncertain future. The best way to learn this (other than the rather costly way of personal mistakes) is from closely following the decision-making process of those who have trod the path before. This book is at its best when Iger allows us windows into his thinking and the drama behind the scenes in the making of one of the most magical companies of our lifetime. Written with a friendly, earnest and sincere tone, the ideas and practices are as accessible as they are universal.

This is the kind of book that makes me want to shout from my roof top and recommend that everyone should read it. Right now. Melinda Gates gives us a behind-the-scenes view on addressing inequality among some of the most marginalized populations in the world. Her book is the best argument and call to action that I have come across for women’s empowerment (when we lift up women, it benefits everyone) along with heart-wrenching stories from her experiences around the world.

Subtitled “A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis”, this book is written by a venture capitalist who grew up in rust-belt Ohio in a working class, dysfunctional family. This story has its appeal in being a universal tale that is not often told – to be white, male and impoverished feels like a contradiction of sorts in our current times, and rarely examined. The book has also been touted as an explanation for the popularity of Trump in America. The reviews have been divisive, but whichever side you belong in your views, it is still worth a read to get a better understanding of an American subculture. It is also beautifully written with an admirable honesty and self-introspection that earns it a spot in this list.

This is a compilation of 100 poems from the “Staying Alive Trilogy” that consists of “Staying Alive,” “Being Alive” and “Being Human,” each of which contains 500 carefully curated poems. The compilation is a further selection from these – it is a wonderful collection that explores the human condition with gentle honesty and leaves the reader feeling less alone and more alive.

Mary Oliver’s poems have the magical ability to help us see the “extraordinary in our everyday lives”, pose illuminating questions on the nature of life (and death) and does so with fantastically simple yet powerful words that rhyme, swirl and dance along the pages. If you like to look under the hood of poetry – why are we so unexplainably moved by seemingly simple arrangement of a few words - her “A Poetry Handbook” is an excellent companion read.

It does not matter if you count yourself as a spiritual person or not, Rumi’s ageless lyrical poems are often described as pure ecstasy and devotional and articulates what it feels to be alive. Often shrouded in mysticism and spiritual metaphors, they still have the uncanny ability to pierce through time and religious constrains to speak to us, even in this day and age, or maybe more so.

Ada Limon’s The Carrying has been at my bedside for several months now. Even though I finished it a while ago, I like flipping through it and re-reading a few before I go to bed. She writes with a simple honesty, but with a power to move that often takes me by surprise – Raincoat is my favourite in the collection, but there are so many beautiful poems, I am sure there is one for everyone.

Sylvia Plath is hard-hitting, but essential. Her poems are full of passion and truth, she wrote about gender, motherhood and marriage, of betrayal and suicidal illness, in poems illuminated – like lightning over the moors – by love and fury. When you read a poetry book, it is not just about the individual poems but the interplay between them and a subtly coherent narrative that is barely visible, but is definitely there. Carol Ann Duffy does a fantastic job in picking the right poems, ordering them in just the right placement and starting us off with a well-written preface.

Our need for connection may be universal, but the way we connect is anything but. The Culture Map is categorized as a business book, and it is primarily aimed at decoding how cultural differences impact work across different countries. But it is ultimately about connecting across cultures, in whatever context it is required. Erin Meyer uses eight “scales” (e.g. communicating, trusting, persuading,…), where each scale is a continuum with the two ends, to describe a specific aspect of culture. While this may come across as a recipe for stereotyping, Meyer is clear to point out that it espouses just the opposite – people are ultimately treated as individuals, with her approach as a crutch to understand their cultural contexts better.

There is no coin without two sides – there is no appreciation of connection without the experience of loneliness. We, as humanity, seem to be struggle to come to terms with isolation in whatever degree we may be experiencing it. The Lonely City by Olivia Liang is an exploration of loneliness, an emotion often acknowledged only shamefully in modern society. In lyrical captivating writing, Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, how could we live if we are not intimately engaged with another human being, how do we connect with other people, does technology draw us closer together or trap us behind screens…and many more such timely and relevant questions.

"Man's search for Meaning", a short, intense, classic book by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychotherapist, detailing his experience in the Nazi death camps. It captures not just human resilience in the face of adversity but also digs into how we humans can connect with our inner self and find meaning and purpose in life and persevere through terrible times.

Mohsin Hamid’s “Reluctant fundamentalist" is more of a conversation than a novel. As night begins to fall, a Pakistani man narrates a story to an uneasy American stranger at a café in Lahore. In that story, which is at once political, ideological and allegorical, many themes are covered, and Hamid does in the beautiful style of a masterful storyteller. But the one that stands out is about the core of human connection. In the face of racism and aggressive nationalism, Hamid questions whether it is possible for two unlike people to genuinely trust and respect one another, while also exploring humans’ fundamental need for these kinds of connections.

Social is a book about human connections - Matthew Lieberman, argues that our brains are literally “wired” to connect and that our need to connect with other people is even more fundamental, more basic, than our need for food or shelter. Our brain has two distinct networks that support social and non-social thinking, as one network increases its activity the other tends to quiet down. Lieberman goes on to prove in the book that the social network is the dominant and default one in humans, making us the social creatures that we are. He also draws out various implications for this in different fields such as education, workplace and individual wellbeing.

A child born in 1914 had a 1% probability of living to 100 years old. A child born in 2007 has a 50% chance of living to be 100. In the book The 100-Year Life, professors Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott talks about a multi-stage life (as opposed to the three-stage life of education, employment and retirement that our grandparents experienced), and how we can be better prepared for it, especially from the perspective of education, career, finances and relationships.

Kevin Kelly has been following technology trends for more than three decades, which puts him in an excellent position to write about the future. In this book, he uses as a framework of fundamental forces - flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and impact each other. It is an optimistic book which tries to paint a picture of the future where we are not pitted against the machines, but where we live in a better world with the machines.

Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is an examination into some of the most urgent issues that we face today. Our world is changing constantly, technology is moving faster than we are able to comprehend – how do we survive, and thrive in this environment? Through 21 lessons, Harari helps us to prepare for a future that would be very different from the world we currently live in.

This is a book about thinking. We think therefore we are, but do we know how we think? Kahneman explains the two different systems of thinking - System 1 which is fast, intuitive, and emotional, System 2 which is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. To understand how we think, act and make choices, and thus training for the right choices and actions this is a must-read.

Humans are a near-sighted race. But the decisions we have to make often have far reaching consequences. In “Farsighted,” Johnson examines the decision-making process, especially for decisions with long-term impact. Through compelling stories and vivid storytelling, he explains how we can most effectively approach the choices that can chart the course of a life, an organization, or a civilization.

The concept of growth mindset, which has infiltrated into popular lexicon these days, was first popularized in the book “Mindset”. Carol S. Dweck shows how success in almost every field of human endeavor is influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset — those who believe that abilities are fixed — are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset — those who believe that abilities can be developed. It gives practical ideas on how parents, teachers, managers, athletes and business leaders can put this idea to use to promote success.

This book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren is an old classic and one of the view that takes a comprehensive approach to the science of reading. The book distinguishes between four levels of reading—elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical. It recommends when to apply which level, and how to approach different kinds of reading materials—practical and theoretical books, imaginative literature (lyric poetry, epics, novels, plays), history, science and mathematics, social science, and philosophy.

“How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying” says the tagline of this book, this is something most students might want to read, if only for the promise of reducing the time they have to spend on studying. Based off a popular online course "Learning How to Learn" (aimed at adults), this book is aimed at a younger audience, to help them develop learning strategies earlier in life. The book examines and explains in simple language how the brain works and then goes onto draw out the implications and therefore tips on how to read better. Recommended for ages 10+.

Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. In this book, they offer new insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved, thus leading to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned.

In this book, Robert Greene analyzes what it takes to achieve mastery by interrogating the lives of past masters such as Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Leonard da Vinci, as well as contemporary masters, such as tech guru Paul Graham, animal rights advocate Temple Grandin etc. Greene debunks our culture’s many myths about genius and distills the wisdom of the ages to reveal the secret to greatness.

Part novel, part mythological epic, part sacred text, Ka is a work of imagination and scholarship by the incomparable Robert Calasso where he tries to tackle the sprawling and elusive corpus of Indian mythology and classical Sanskrit literature.

I can’t remember when I started reading this book, tackling sections whenever time permits and re-reading them on occasion. Described as “the metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll,” GEB is a book about a mathematician, an artist and a musician, which NYTimes describes in an unsatisfactory one-liner as a scientist’s argument that reality is system of interconnected braids.

“We all play games. In the workplace, in the boardroom, in the bedroom even when we are not aware of it.” So says the blurb of this book. What a cynical view, was my first thought. Then I remembered the times I’ve felt played, and figured I might need to read this book – it is an interesting analytical view on the psychology of relationships and the underlying patterns of behavior.

We are reading this as a family, reading perhaps the wrong word to use, since the art work in every alternate page is as much as savor as the words on the accompanying page. A compilation of 121 letters addressed to young readers, the book is simultaneously playful and powerful in defending the dignity and authority of the written word.

The Lost Art of Reading is a meditation on why books matter in a distracted world. According to Ulin, reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In a world devoured by fragmentation, dilution and refraction, Ulin poses questions about the lost art of reading that are important for us to answer, not just as individuals but also for the society as a whole.