Are you heading out on a summer vacation soon? Do you need some book recommendations?
If so, then Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates is your man. He put together a list of five of his favorites. He acknowledges that his choices aren’t exactly light beach reading – there are no murder mysteries here.
“As I was putting together my list, I realized that the topics they cover sound pretty heavy for vacation reading,” he wrote on his blog.
“There are books here about gender equality, political polarization, climate change, and the hard truth that life never goes the way young people think it will.”
Still, “none of the five books feel heavy (even though, at nearly 600 pages, The Lincoln Highway is literally weighty),” Gates said.
“Each of the writers — three novelists, a journalist, and a scientist— was able to take a meaty subject and make it compelling without sacrificing any complexity.”
Here are Gates’ recommendations:
· The Power, by Naomi Alderman. “It 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. Reading The Power, I gained a stronger and more visceral sense of the abuse and injustice many women experience today.”
· Why We’re Polarized, by Ezra Klein. “I’m generally optimistic about the future, but one thing that dampens my outlook a bit is the increasing polarization in America, especially when it comes to politics,” Gates said. “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.”
· The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. “Set in 1954, it’s about two brothers who are trying to drive from Nebraska to California to find their mother,” Gates said. “Their trip is thrown way off-course by a volatile teenager from the older brother’s past. Towles takes inspiration from famous heroes’ journeys and seems to be saying that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as we might hope.”
· The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson. “When I was promoting my book on climate change last year, a number of people told me I should read this novel, because it dramatized many of the issues I had written about,” Gates said. “Robinson presents a stimulating and engaging story, spanning decades and continents, packed with fascinating ideas and people.”
· How the World Really Works, by Vaclav Smil. “Unlike most of Vaclav’s books, which read like textbooks and go super-deep on one topic, this one is written for a general audience and gives an overview of the main areas of his expertise,” Gates said. “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.”
