Apple CEO Tim Cook Shares 6 Books That Shaped Him

• Dua Lipa recently interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook on her BBC podcast, “Dua Lipa: At Your Service.”
• Lipa asked Cook to share the books that shaped him.
• Her choices included “I Am Malala” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Many important leaders are avid readers.

Warren Buffett sometimes read 1,000 pages a day when he began his investing career, and he is still an avid reader. Jeff Bezos held all-day book clubs for his senior executives. Elon Musk was influenced by science fiction books from a young age. And of course, there’s Bill Gates’ famous summer reading list.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is no exception.

Dua Lipa recently interviewed Cook on an episode of the BBC’s “Dua Lipa: At Your Service” podcast. Towards the end of the episode, she asked him to share five books that have shaped him over the years.

Here’s what Cook had to say about each of them:

1. “Kill a mockingbird“, Harper Lee

   “I think it’s not just for young students, but for all of us,” Cook said of Harper Lee’s classic novel, widely read in schools.

2. “Shoe Dog: a memoir from the creator of Nike“,Phil Knight

   “It’s sort of supposed to be a book about business, but it’s a book about life,” Cook said of Nike co-founder Phil Knight’s memoir. “It’s really super.”

3. “When breath becomes air“, Paul Kalanithi

   Cook called this memoir by neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi “phenomenal.” Kalanithi chronicled her battle with stage 4 lung cancer, reflecting on mortality, illness and medicine in her book, published posthumously after the author’s death in 2015.

4. “I am Malala“, Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb

   “I love Malala’s story and her passion for educating young girls,” Cook said. “We work with her and the work she does is incredible.”

   Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography, co-written with British journalist and author Christina Lamb, chronicles Yousafzai’s early life, her activism and the assassination attempt against her at the age of 15.

   Apple and the Malala Fund announced a long-term partnership in 2018 to provide around 100,000 underprivileged girls with a primary education, and Yousafzai has since also signed a programming partnership with Apple TV+.

5. Biographies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy

   “I love reading biographies of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and some of the great people who fought for civil rights,” Cook told Lipa. Although he gave no specific title, there are well-known biographies of Kennedy by Thurston Clarke and Chris Matthews, as well as an autobiography of King created by historian and documentarian Clayborne Carson by weaving together King’s works to the first person.