Bill Gates’s hot book picks of 2017
The world’s second
richest man reads about 50 books a year, but few make it to his annual
shortlist. Here are his five favourites
ENERGY AND CIVILIZATION: A
HISTORY by Vaclav Smil
Gates has read nearly all of Smil’s 37 books,
including his latest one, which makes the case that energy consumption and
economic growth are undeniably linked.
The book explores how energy — from donkey-powered
mills to renewable power sources — has shaped societies throughout history.
“Yes, our history has a lot to do with kings and
queens and games of thrones,” Gates wrote on his blog. “Smil shows that it has
even more to do with energy innovation.”
THE SYMPATHIZER by Viet Thanh
Nguyen
Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning, historical fiction novel
is about a Vietnamese double agent who spies on a refugee community in Los
Angeles on behalf of the North Vietnamese government.
The book offers insight into what it was like to be
caught between the two sides of the Vietnam War, according to Gates.
“Nguyen doesn’t shy away from how traumatic the
Vietnam War was for everyone involved. Nor does he pass judgment about where
his narrator’s loyalties should lie. Most war stories are clear about which
side you should root for – The Sympathizer doesn’t let the
reader off the hook so easily,” he wrote.
BELIEVE ME: A MEMOIR OF LOVE,
DEATH, AND JAZZ CHICKENS by Eddie Izzard
In this memoir, Izzard writes about how he worked
through his childhood struggles, learned new skills, and became a worldrenowned
comedian, actor, writer, runner, and activist. Gates said he connected with
Izzard even though it would appear they have nothing in common. But that might
be the very point the author is trying to communicate, Gates noted.
“I’ve recently discovered that I have a lot in common
with a funny, dyslexic, transgender actor, comedian, escape artist, unicyclist,
ultra-marathoner, and pilot from Great Britain. Except all of the above,” Gates
said. “We’re all cut from the same cloth. In his words, ‘We are all totally
different, but we are all exactly the same.’”
EVICTED: POVERTY AND PROFIT IN
THE AMERICAN CITY by Matthew Desmond
Gates called this book a “searing portrait of
American poverty.” Desmond, a sociologist at Princeton University, spent 18
months living in two highpoverty neighbourhoods in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — one
mostly white, the other mostly black — and documented the lives of residents,
including landlords and renters.
Gates said it was easy to empathise with the
subjects, since Desmond helps you understand why they make their choices.
THE BEST WE COULD DO by Thi Bui
This autobiographical graphic novel follows the
daughter of Vietnamese refugees who came to the United States after the fall of
Saigon in 1975. She learns a heartbreaking truth about the sacrifices her
parents made for her and her siblings, as well as the turmoil created by French
and American occupation in Vietnam. “I thought she did a great job capturing
how daunting it feels to be responsible for your family,” Gates wrote.
ETP 6DEC17
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