The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
Mark Twain was of course right. Here are some ideas where to start.
BASIC STUFF
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. (for readers in the US)
Gribbin, John. Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity. New York: Random House, 2005. (for readers in the US)
Hofstadter, Douglas. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books, 1999. (for readers in the US)
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. (for readers in the US)
Wilson, Edward O. The Origins Of Creativity. New York: Liveright, 2017. (for readers in the US)
IF YOU KNOW YOUR HISTORY
Bayly, C. A. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780 – 1914: Global Connections and Comparisons. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. (for readers in the US)
Bloch, Marc. The Historian’s Craft. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992. (for readers in the US)
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel. New York: Vintage Books, 2017. (for readers in the US)
Gombrich, E. H. The Story of Art. London & New York: Phaidon, 2013. (for readers in the US)
White, Hayden. The Fiction of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1957–2007, edited by Robert Doran. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. (for readers in the US)
GET BETTER
Carnegie, Dale. How To Stop Worrying And Start Living. New York: Random House, 1999. (for readers in the US)
Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (Free Press). New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013. (for readers in the US)
Dalio, Ray. Principles: Life and Work. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013. (for readers in the US)
Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. (for readers in the US)
Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Random House, 2005. (for readers in the US)
GET LUCKY
Gigerenzer, Gerd. Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions. London: Penguin Books, 2013. (for readers in the US)
Gunther, Max. The Zurich Axioms: The Rules of Risk and Reward Used by Generations of Swiss Bankers. Petersfield: Harriman House, 2004. (for readers in the US)
Rescher, Nicholas. Luck: The Brilliant Randomness of Everyday Life. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1995. (for readers in the US)
Taleb, Nassim N. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House and Penguin Books, 2007. (for readers in the US)
Wiseman, Richard. The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind. London: Random House, 2003. (for readers in the US)
KNOW YOURSELF… AND OTHERS
Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Revised edition. New York: Collins Business, 2007. (for readers in the US)
Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search For Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. (for readers in the US)
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013. (for readers in the US)
Saad, Gad. The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011. (for readers in the US)
Schirrmacher, Frank. Ego: The Game of Life. Translated by Nick Somers. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015. (for readers in the US)
UNDERSTAND MONEY & WEALTH
Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. New York: Grove Press, 2010. (for readers in the US)
Cohen, Stephen S., and J. Bradford DeLong. Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2016. (for readers in the US)
Graham, Benjamin. The Intelligent Investor. Revised edition. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. (for readers in the US)
Kondratieff, Nikolai. Long Wave Cycle. Translated by Guy Daniels. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1984. (for readers in the US)
Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. (for readers in the US)
MEDIA, MARKETING AND MORE
Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. (for readers in the US)
Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. (for readers in the US)
Kelly, Kevin. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. New York: Viking Press, 2016. (for readers in the US)
Vaynerchuk, Gary. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World. New York: HarperBusiness, 2013. (for readers in the US)
Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2019. (for readers in the US)
BRILLIANT FICTION
Bulgakov, Mikhail. The White Guard. Translated by Michael Glenny. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. (for readers in the US)
Frisch, Max. Homo Faber: A Report. Translated by Michael Bullock. Boston: Mariner Books, 1994. (for readers in the US)
Greene, Graham. The Quiet American. London: Penguin Books, 2004. (for readers in the US)
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. London: Penguin Books, 2015. (for readers in the US)
Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2014. (for readers in the US)
OUTSTANDING AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
Berberova, Nina. The Italics are Mine. Translated by Philippe Radley. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. (for readers in the US)
Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. New York: Touchstone, 1996. (for readers in the US)
García Márquez, Gabriel. Living to Tell the Tale. Translated by Edith Grossman. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. (for readers in the US)
Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom. New York: Back Bay Books, 1995. (for readers in the US)
Reich-Ranicki, Marcel. The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Translated by Ewald Osers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. (for readers in the US)
FUN STUFF
Bernstein, Carl, and Bob Woodward. All the President’s Men. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014. (for readers in the US)
Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. (for readers in the US)
Strauss, Neil. The Game. New York: Regan Books, 2005. (for readers in the US)
Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012. (for readers in the US)
Tevis, Walter. The Hustler. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1959. (for readers in the US)
MORE BITS
Hardin, Garret. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162: 3859 (13 Dec. 1968): 1243-1248.