The 12 Essential Books On Jeff Bezos' Reading List

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, despite contributing to the destruction of the physical bookstore, is a man intensely interested in and passionate about books and reading.

In the appendix of Brad Stone's new book about Amazon, "The Everything Store," there's a list of books called "Jeff's Reading List," highlighted by Shane Parrish at Farnam Street.

"Books have nurtured Amazon since its creation and shaped its culture and strategy," Stone writes. "Here are a dozen books widely read by executives and employees that are integral to understanding the company."

The list is not just weighty business tomes, though classics like "The Innovator's Dilemma" are there, but includes novels and biographies as well. They help explain some of Bezos' core management philosophies, like "two pizza teams," the Amazon maxim that no team be larger than the number of people that can share two pizzas. It also includes books that helped inspire the creation of Amazon Web Services, the company's highly lucrative cloud business, and the Kindle.

It's an amazing way to get into the mind of Jeff Bezos.

We've listed the books here, along with Stone's explanation of why each made the list.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.