Mao Zedong, an enthusiastic reader throughout his life, devoured a wide range of topics from history to Buddhism, fiction and military science.

His favorite books were A Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government, and The Twenty-Four Histories, a series of dynastic histories from remote antiquity until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). His reading of overseas authors was mainly confined to books about Marxism.

Mao, who worked as a librarian at Peking University for four months in 1918, was a famous poet and many of his works are included in Chinese-language textbooks.