Aaron Hicklin of the
excellent website One Grand Books recently
asked Bill Gates what
books he want if marooned on a desert island.
Gates didn't fully accept the premise, but did provide a list of books that
he's reading, which would therefore be with him, de-facto, were he suddenly
marooned.
I've published Gates's book lists in
the past and have found his choices to be often wistful and
idiosyncratic.
Apparently Gates has gotten into a more serious mood,
because his current list (minus two novels) is very much concerned what's
happening in the world today:
BUSINESS
1. Business Adventures
Subtitle: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street
Author: John Brooks
5 Second Summary: A set of classic case studies about the
machinations and volatile nature of the world of finance, each representative
of how human nature affects decision-making regardless of when those decisions
are made.
Best Quote: The stock market-the daytime adventure serial of the
well to do-would not be the stock market if it did not have its ups and downs.
Any board-room sitter with a taste for Wall Street lore has heard of the retort
that JP Morgan the Elder is supposed made to a naïve acquaintance who ventured
to ask the great man what the market was going to do. "It will
fluctuate," replied Morgan dryly. And it has many other distinctive
characteristics. Apart from the economic advantages and disadvantages of stock
exchanges-the advantage that they provide a free flow capital to finance
industrial expansion, for instance, and the disadvantage that they provide an
all too convenient way for the unlucky, the imprudent, and the gullible to lose
their money-their development has created a whole pattern of social behavior,
complete with customs, language, and predictable responses to given
events."
2. The Power to
Compete
Subtitle: An Economist and an Entrepreneur on Revitalizing Japan
in the Global Economy
Author: Hiroshi Mikitani and Ryoichi Mikitani
5 Second Summary: Argues that Japan's tendency to shun
international frameworks and hide from global realities is the root cause of
Japan's seemingly endless economic stagnation and analyzes current efforts
underway to enhance Japan's competitiveness.
Best Quote: "Japanese companies are responsible for the
current state of affairs; the biggest reason behind these developments is the
inadequacy of their managers. If Japanese companies work to appoint the best
people available-people who have accumulated a variety of experiences on the
global stage-then they would be able to raise their competitiveness. In
reality, however, under the lifetime employment system, homegrown
employees are promoted to managerial positions based on age rather than skill
or global experience."
PUBLIC
POLICY
3. Sustainable Energy
- Without the Hot Air
Author: David JC MacKay
5 Second Summary: Analyzes the relevant numbers on sustainable
energy and organizes a plan for change on both a personal level and an
international scale, while answering questions surrounding nuclear energy, the
potential of sustainable fossil fuels, and the possibilities of sharing
renewable power with foreign countries.
Best Quote: "Where numbers are used, their meaning is often
obfuscated by enormousness. Numbers are chosen to impress, to score points and
arguments, rather than to inform. 'Los Angeles residents drive 142 million
miles-the distance from Earth to Mars-every single day.' 'Each year, 27 million
acres of tropical rain forest are destroyed.' '14 billion pounds of trash are
dumped into the sea every year.' 'British people throw away 2.6 billion slices
of bread per year.' 'The waste paper buried each year in the UK could fill
103,448 double-decker buses.' The result of this lack of meaningful members and
facts? We are inundated with a flood of crazy innumerate codswallop. The BBC
dulls out advice on how we can do our bit to save the planet. For example:
'Switch off your mobile phone charger when it's not in use.' If anyone objects
that mobile phone chargers are not actually our number one form of energy
consumption, the mantra 'every little bit helps' is wheeled out. Every
little bit helps? A more realistic mantra is 'if everyone does a little, we'll
achieve only a little.'"
4. The Better Angels
of Our Nature
Subtitle: Why Violence Has Declined
Author: Steven Pinker
5 Second Summary: Through an exploration of the essence of human
nature and an examination of psychology and history, this book shows that
despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has
actually been in decline over long stretches of history.
Best Quote: "For all the dangers we face today, the dangers
of yesterday were even worse. Readers of this book (and as we shall see, people
in most of the rest of the world) no longer have to worry about abduction into
sexual slavery, divinely commanded genocide, lethal circuses and tournaments,
punishment on the cross, rack, wheel, stake, or strappado for holding unpopular
beliefs, decapitation for not bearing a son, disembowelment for having dated a
royal, pistol duels to defend their honor, beachside fisticuffs to impress
their girlfriends, and the prospect of a nuclear world war that would put an
end to civilization or to human life itself."
SCIENCE
5. Sapiens
Subtitle: A Brief History of Humankind
Author: Yuval Noah Harari
5 Second Summary: Integrates history and science to reconsider
accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and
examine specific events within the context of human evolution and our
recently-acquired ability to bend laws of natural selection.
Best Quote: "Despite the astonishing things that humans are
capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as discontented
as ever. We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space
shuttles--but nobody knows where we're going. We are more powerful than ever
before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still,
humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the
laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are
consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding
ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never
finding satisfaction. Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and
irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?"
6. The Vital Question
Subtitle: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
Author: Nick Lane
5 Second Summary: Draws on cutting-edge research into the link
between energy and cell biology to deliver a compelling account of evolution
from the very origins of life to the emergence of multicellular organisms,
while offering deep insights into our own lives.
Best Quote: "We do not know why life is the way it is. All
complex life on earth shares a common ancestor, a cell that arose from simple
bacterial progenitors on just one occasion in 4 billion years. Was this a freak
accident, or did other 'experiments' in the evolution of complexity fail? We
don't know. We do know at this common ancestor was already a very complex cell.
It had more or less the same sophistication as one of your cells, and passed
this great complexity on not just to you and me but to all its descendants,
from trees to bees."
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
7. How Not to Be Wrong
Subtitle: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
Author: Jordan Ellenberg
5 Second Summary: Shows how to apply mathematical analysis to a
wide range of sitautions, including baseball, Reaganomics, lotteries,
psychology, painting, artificial languages, non-Euclidean geometry, slime
molds, Facebook and the existence of God.
Best Quote: "You probably already are doing math, even if you don't
call it that. Math is woven into the way we reason. And math makes you
better at things. Knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs
reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world.
Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits
hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. With the tools of
mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, sounder and more
meaningful way."
8. Parenting with Love
and Logic
Author: Foster Cline
and Jim Fay
5 Second Summary:
Shows how to raise self-confident, motivated children who are ready for the
real world and how to parent effectively and teach responsibility without
anger, threats, nagging, or power struggles.
Best Quote:
"Parents send messages to their children about what they think their kids
are capable of. Message the helicopter parent sends is, ' you are fragile and
can't make it without me.' The drill sergeant's message is, ' you can't
think for yourself so I'll do it for you.' While both of these parental
types may successfully control their children in the early years, they will
have done their kids a disservice once puberty is reached. Helicopter children
become adolescents unable to cope with outside forces, think for themselves, or
handle their own problems. Drill sergeant kids, who did a lot of saluting when
they were young, will do a lot of saluting with teenagers, but the salute is
different: a raised fist or a crude gesture involving the middle finger."
Thanks for sharing. I do hope you'd share your thoughts as you read these books. Thanks once again.
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