Bill Gates Recommends Five Book Titles for Summer Reading

In his new blog post, the often controversial billionaire Bill Gates urged the audience to engage with 'the unusual relationship of man in nature'. Recently, aside from his divorce, Gates has focused on combating climate change (and the pandemic, of course) on his blog Gates Notes, presenting a list of titles ideal for summer reading that could help in better understanding the world around us:

1. Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric, Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann.

How can a company as large and successful as General Electric fail? The answer to that question, Gates found in the book Lights Out, where the author thoroughly analyzes the mistakes and wrong moves made by the company's leadership. If you are a member of the management team of a company or a nonprofit organization, Gates is convinced that you can learn a lot from this book. 

2. Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future, Elizabeth Kolbert

Author Elizabeth Kolbert described her work as 'a book about people trying to solve problems caused by people trying to solve problems'. More specifically, she writes about the ways in which humans have intervened in nature and messed things up. Gates particularly enjoyed the themes in this book related to geoengineering and genetics.

3. A Promised Land, Barack Obama (local publisher Planetopija)

The memoirs of former U.S. President Barack Obama cover his life from idealistic youth to all the political and social challenges he faced as President of the United States. Gates praises his unusual honesty in discussing his days in the White House during one of the most tumultuous periods in the country's history.

4. The Overstory, Richard Powers

One of the most unusual novels Gates has read tells the story of nine people and their connection to trees. Although the novel takes a more extreme approach to the need to protect forests, the billionaire was moved by the passion and dedication of each character. After reading the book, he wrote that he felt a tremendous urge to explore the topic further, to learn as much as possible about the fascinating world of trees.

5. An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives, Matt Richtel

Although Richtel wrote the book before the pandemic, his insights into how the human immune system works are certainly worth noting in the era of Covid-19. The author focused on four patients, each of whom managed their immune system in a different way. Their interesting stories provide, Gates claims, a completely new perspective on immunology.