Bill Gates announced the annual list of his favorite books of the year, perfectly synchronized for the holiday season. The co-founder of Microsoft encourages the gift of reading with these five titles, ranging from memories about the power of education to a guide to deal with modern fears.
In a message detailing his Gates Notes choices, the philanthropist acknowledges that he generally does not consider the "gift" nature of a book, but his choices for 2018 can really satisfy all readers. "If you're looking for an infallible gift for your friends and family, you can not go wrong by choosing one of them," he writes. Here, the five books that Gates loved in 2018.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Secrets of a Silicon Valley Company, John Carreyrou
Gates called the page "so convincing that he could not refuse it". Bad Blood is interested in the collapse of Theranos, a company claiming to be able to take a small sample of a client's blood and analyze it for a general picture of health - but the technology behind the tests has never worked. "The story is even crazier than I expected, and I found myself unable to leave once I started," writes Gates. "This book has it all: complex scams, corporate intrigues, magazine cover items, ruins of family relationships and the disappearance of a company that was worth nearly $ 10 billion in the past."
Armed with nothing: autonomous arms and the future of war, Paul Scharre
Scharre, a former army ranger, describes the scope of autonomous weapons and the power of technologies such as artificial intelligence. "Self-contained weapons are not the most important thing for most people during the holidays, but it's hard to let that thought look at A.I. during the war," Gates writes. "It's a very complicated question, but Scharre provides clear explanations and presents the advantages and disadvantages of machine warfare."
21 lessons for the 21st century, Yuval Noah Harari
If the concerns of 2018 affect you, the historian Yuval Noah Harari offers some relief: we should not stop worrying completely, we should worry only in a more organized way. "It's about knowing what to worry about and how much to worry about," Gates wrote. Harari has "created a crucial global conversation about how to solve the problems of the 21st century".
Educated: a memoir, Tara Westover
Tara Westover grew up with surviving parents who kept her completely isolated from the outside world (she did not go to school at the age of 17), but she learned all she needed to know to go at university and eventually got a PhD. from the University of Cambridge. The only memory on Gates' list, Educated, highlights the importance of reinventing oneself, but never at the expense of Westover's childhood. "Tara is never cruel, even when writing about some of her father's most marginal beliefs," Gates writes. "It is clear that his entire family, including his father and mother, is energetic and talented, whatever their ideas, they pursue them."
The Mental Space Guide for Meditation and Mindfulness, Andy Puddicombe
Gates jokes that his 25-year-old character would mock the selection of this book on meditation, but he now finds that "meditation is simply an exercise for the mind, similar to the way we exercise our muscles when we do sports ". Gates notes that he found many meditation books too intimidating, but Puddicombe has "reduced the entrance barrier enough", both with his Headspace app and with this instruction manual. "Andy is an ingenious storyteller and offers many useful metaphors to explain potentially complex concepts, making it easy and enjoyable reading," Gates writes. He and his wife, Melinda Gates, practiced meditation and invited Puddicombe to walk with his family during exercises. They found him "as warm, humble, and real as we imagined him reading his book and listening to him in the app."
Reviewed by Musa Ali
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