5 Books Recommended by Bill Gates to Read in the Summer of 2022

There are hardly a few people in the world that do not know who Bill Gates is. He is the founder of one of the largest software companies in the world, Microsoft. He has also held the title of the World’s Richest Man for several years before. Bill Gates has a blog where he updates and writes reviews on the books he has read. Here are the 5 books recommended by Bill Gates to read in the summer of 2022 from that blog.

The Power, by Naomi Alderman

Naomi Alderman is an American novelist and a game writer. She has written several books, the most prominent ones being books in the Doctor Who series. She is mainly concerned with and writes about science fiction or aligning genres. The Power is also a science fiction book that won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2017. The premise of the book is that women all over the world gain the power to produce electric bolts from their fingertips. This results in them dominating the world. This book takes a deep fictional dive into gender roles, and how they define the world today.

Bill Gates mentioned that this book was recommended to him by his older daughter, Jennifer Gates. He claims that reading this book helped him gain a “stronger and more visceral” sense of the abuse, injustice, and prejudice women have to go through every day. It also helps him appreciate and understand their struggles better and increased his respect for people who fight for such issues.

Why We’re Polarized, by Ezra Klein

Ezra Klien is a well-known television figure with his own show entitled the Ezra Klein show. He is also a journalist, writer, and a New York Times columnist. He also has a Netflix series named Explained where various concepts are explained in a simple and understandable manner. Why We’re Polarized is a non-fiction book by him where he talks about the political polarization of American society.

Bill Gates claims that he is generally very optimistic about the future, but the thing that bothers him is the polarization of society. A polarized society is one where people segregate themselves or are segregated based on religion, gender, economic class, race, etc. Belonging to a certain group shapes an individual’s identity in certain ways, which can sometimes be negative. Bill Gates, personally found this book interesting as it reflected a lot upon human psychology as well while talking about the political situation in America.

The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles

Amor Towles is an American novelist who has written best-selling popular books like A Gentleman ins Moscow and Rules of Civility. The Lincoln Highway is a historical fiction novel set in the 1950s. It follows the story of an eighteen-year-old boy named Emmett Watson. He is an orphan left alone with a little brother with whom he plans to run away with. While on their trip of getting away, two children also follow him to his car and hide in it till they reach a safer destination. They then set off on an adventure to find their mother.

This is not the first time Amor Towles has caught the attention of Bill Gates himself, his book A Gentleman in Moscow was also added to Bill Gates’ 2019 summer reads. The Lincoln Highway explores the story of the adventures of finding their mother and the adventures during it. Bill Gates claimed that Towles takes inspiration from the journey of famous heroes, and gives the message that our lives are not as predictable and linear as we might think they may be.

The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson is a science fiction author who has a total of 22 published books. His most popular book series is the Mars series. He also has multiple essays and short stories published in various magazines and websites. His books have also been translated into over twenty languages. The Ministry for the Future is a “climate fiction” novel (also known as cli-fi).

This book is set in the near future, where a committee formed under the Paris AGreement is given the task to advocate for the rights of the future generation. This book has been categorized as hard science fiction, which is a sub-genre of science fiction that is mainly based on reality and scientific concerns. Bill Gates was given this recommendation when he was promoting his own climate change book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. It was a popular recommendation as many of the issues mentioned in the book that is mentioned in the book are the issues Bill Gates himself was concerned with.

How the World Really Works, by Vaclav Smil

Vaclav Smil is a Czech-Canadian author, scientist, and professor. He has authored over forty books in his lifetime so far. He has conducted interdisciplinary studies on various fields such as history, the environment, politics, geography, food, population, etc. How the World Really Works is a book in which Vaclav Smil tries to summarize the principles on which the world exists. This book has a mention a little of everything, from globalization to economic, political, and social issues, etc.

Bill Gates has labelled this book as a “masterpiece”, and Vaclav Smil as “one of his favourite authors.” He claims that this book is easy for the general audience to read, unlike some of other Smil’s works. It is brief, yet covers several fundamental topics that create and sustain human life.

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