What could top the coolness of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk? How about following in his booksteps? Picked on as a child growing up in South Africa, Musk admits that he escaped into the world of science fiction, immersing himself in the futuristic worlds created by Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. As his interest in real-world science grew, the quixotic inventrepreneur sought out books on intellectual figures such as Albert Einstein, and studied volumes of scientific principles. Leadership lessons were learned from powerful historical figures like Winston Churchill and Catherine the Great.

Pick up just one of the inspirational titles on Musk’s list, shared with Inc. Digital, and see if you don’t feel more Stout when you’re done reading!

1. Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barrat
2. Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
3. Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down by J.E. Gordon
4.  Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
5. If the Universe Is Teeming With Aliens…WHERE IS EVERYBODY? by Stephen Webb
6. Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson
7. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
8.  Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes
9.  The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World by Randall E. Stross
10.  The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
11. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom
12. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965 by William Manchester

 
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