bill gates is an avid reader: the world’s richest man once read his parents’ set of encyclopedias of world books in alphabetical order. So when he selects just five as his top reads of 2016, it’s worth taking note.
gates revealed his picks in a blog post on his personal website, gates notes, on Monday. the books range in subject matter from tennis strategy to genome technology to political leadership. What connects them is that each helps readers learn new things for themselves, Gates writes. “They are all very well written and they all threw me down a rabbit hole of unexpected delights and ideas.
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These are his top four picks (and an honorable mention):
1. string theory, by david foster wallace.
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in string theory, the library of america collected five non-fiction essays on tennis by the late david foster wallace, including an essay on his experience as a junior player in illinois in 1992, “derivative sport in tornado alley” and a celebrated profile of roger federer in 2006, “federer as religious experience”. “You don’t have to play or even watch tennis to love this book,” Gates writes. “The late author handled a pen as skillfully as Roger Federer handles a tennis racket.”
2. shoe dog, by phil knight.
Gates has met with the author of the shoe dog memoir and can attest that getting to know the co-founder of Nike can be tricky. the gentleman’s opening in the book is what earned him a spot on the list. The memoir “is a refreshingly honest reminder of what the road to business success really is: messy, precarious, and riddled with mistakes,” Gates writes.
3. the gene, by siddhartha mukherjee.
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In The Gene, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee explains how scientists have come to understand genes and addresses the moral questions of current genomic technologies. the best part? You don’t have to be a doctor to understand it. “Mukherjee wrote this book for a lay audience, because he knows that new genome technologies are about to affect us all in profound ways,” Gates writes.
4. the myth of the strong leader, by archie brown.
The theme of this 2014 book by international relations scholar Archie Brown made it especially relevant reading during America’s recent war. presidential election, earning him a spot on the 2016 gates list. brown argues that the best political leaders are not those we perceive as “strong,” but those who can negotiate, collaborate, and delegate.
honorable mention: the grid, by gretchen bakke.
gretchen bakke’s network had a special resonance for gates: her first job was writing software for the entity that controls the northwestern power grid. the deep dive in the usa the electricity grid reveals its complexity and importance and highlights the difficulty of reinventing it for a clean energy future. It also fits into one of Gates’ favorite categories: “books about mundane things that are really fascinating.”
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