I first pay tribute to Tom Butler-Bowdon who is most notable for the "50 Classics" series of books, which provide commentaries on key writings in personal development, psychology, philosophy and economics.

I was introduced to his books by my personal trainer-cum-guru, Tony Lowe, at a low point in my life when I exclaimed to him, whilst pedaling furiously on his exercise bike, that I was working too hard, earning too little and enjoying nothing much in particular!

Tom Butler-Bowden appears to have done all the real hard work sifting and sorting out what really needs to be read and what can be discarded, and it was an easy thing for me to determine exactly what classic material might speak to my heart most powerfully, and more importantly - most rapidly. Many of the books now in my own list of classic reads, were first summarised and described in Butler-Bowden's. So if you want a second opinion on what I have here then you don't have far to go.

Now that I have started populating this list with various titles it strikes me that I am going to have to re-read and re-purchase most of these books once again. I have made it a habit of handing most of these book on to people who could really benefit from their wisdom; but that has always been my pleasure.