Bill Gates’s 5 books for summer ‘sound pretty heavy,’ but they’re great reads – MarketWatch
Bill Gates is the first to admit that his summer beach reads “sound pretty heavy for vacation reading.”
The Microsoft MSFT, -0.54% founder turned philanthropist shared his “5 great books for the summer” for 2022 on his Gates Notes personal blog on Monday. There’s a sci-fi novel recommended by his oldest daughter, Jennifer, as well as: a coming-of-age road trip set in the 1950s; the requisite climate-change tome; an exploration of political polarization; and a nonfiction deep-dive into the world and its complexities by his favorite author.
MarketWatch got a sneak peek of his bookish blog post in advance, where Gates noted that this year’s list, “does not exactly sound like the stuff of beach reads.”
But he added that none of the books “feel heavy” while flipping through them (well, except for the 600-page text that is literally hefty), because the authors “take a meaty subject and make it compelling without sacrificing any complexity.”
These are “5 great books for the summer,” according to Bill Gates. And he also does a longer, full review of each book in separate posts on his blog.
“How the World Really Works” by Vaclav Smil Smil is “one of my favorite authors,” Gates writes — but even the tech giant concedes that works from his go-to writer can read more like textbooks at times. But this book, he says, is much more readable. “If you want a brief but thorough education in numeric thinking about many of the fundamental forces that shape human life, this is the book to read,” Gates writes.
What’s more, those who have signed up to be Gates Notes Insiders can get a free chapter download from this book.
“Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles This road-trip novel set in 1954 follows two brothers driving across the country from Nebraska to California in search of their mother. “Towles takes inspiration from famous hero’s journeys and seems to be saying that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as we might hope,” Gates says. He also previously recommended another one of Towles’s works, “A Gentleman in Moscow.”
“Why We’re Polarized” by Ezra Klein While this book is about American politics and why they have become more and more divisive, Gates notes that this work is also a “fascinating” look at human psychology. “In this insightful book, Klein argues persuasively that the cause of this split is identity — the human instinct to let our group identities guide our decision making,” Gates says.
“The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson Gates published his own book on climate change last year : “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.” And he says that a number of people told him to pick up this book by Kim Stanley Robinson for even more context. “It’s so complex that it’s hard to summarize, but Robinson presents a stimulating and engaging story, spanning decades and continents, packed with fascinating ideas and people,” he writes.
“The Power” by Naomi Alderman Gates says that his oldest daughter recommended that he read this novel, which “cleverly uses a single idea — what if all the women in the world suddenly gained the power to produce deadly electric shocks from their bodies? — to explore gender roles and gender equality.” Gates says that this book gave him “a stronger and more visceral sense of the abuse and injustice many women experience today.”
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