An intriguing tweet from Bill Gates just flashed onto my screen:

"How can economic leaders help the world’s poorest people? These 5 books helped me develop my point of view."

Given that Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, is making headlines around the world with his recent speech on world poverty and hunger to the G20 world finance summit -- along with all the work theBill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing on these subjects -- I thought the list would be worth sharing.

Here it is:

• "The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves," by Matt Ridley

• "Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty," by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

• "The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time," by Jeffrey Sachs

• "The Plundered Planet: Why We Must -- and How We Can -- Manage Nature for Global Prosperity," by Paul Collier

• "Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding -- and How We Can Improve the World Even More," by Charles Kenny

To learn more about the books, or just to follow Gates' thinking on the subject, see his blog, "thegatesnotes."