Bill Gates Book Recommendations: What Books Does He Read?

Bill Gates book recommendations

We are going to look at some of Bill Gates book recommendations.

Bill Gates is an American business tycoon and philanthropist. He is known most as the co-founder of Microsoft, one of the largest technology companies in the world, with Paul Allen.

Now, Bill Gates works on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private charity in the world. His foundation helped fund aid to fight diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and helped distribute vaccines to eradicate polio. His foundation mainly focuses on developing countries.

How much does Bill Gates read?

Bill Gates loves to read. He’s said to read about 50 books per year, which is roughly one per week.

What is Bill Gates’ favorite book genre?

Bill Gates has said that his favorite book genre is nonfiction. In one of his blog posts, he says that reading is his favorite way to learn about something new.

If I had to take a guess, one of his favorite things to read about is climate change. He is extremely passionate about how humans will handle climate change and its affects.

Bill Gates Book Recommendation List

Bill Gates does a lot of reading, so recommendations from him should be held highly. Remember, he reads about 50 books per year! Here’s the list of Bill Gates’ book recommendations:

The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger

Book Cover: The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger

The Choice is about Dr. Edith Eva Eger’s experience in Auschwitz at the age of sixteen. Her parents were killed and she was forced to dance for her life as amusement. She was later pulled from a pile of corpses by American Troops.

At first, she felt guilty about surviving while her friends and family did not. About thirty-five years after the war had ended, Dr. Eger went back to Auschwitz to heal and forgive herself. 

In her book, she talks about her personal experience and how we can heal as well. She wants to provide hope and comfort to people who have experienced trauma.

Why does Bill Gates recommend The Choice?

His ex-wife, Melinda Gates, recommended the book to him, and now, he’s recommending the book to us.

He asks “How do you move on after trauma?”

Bill Gates recommends The Choice because he thinks it’s smart, useful advice for helping people overcome trauma in their lives.

He also likes that it’s a memoir. The book shows what life was like not only during Auschwitz, but during the chaotic, post-war Europe. 

The book shows how she started the healing process in her life after someone gives her Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, the book that inspired her to become a therapist.

One thing that Bill Gates likes about the book is that her approach to healing can apply to just about any disappointment, no matter how small. He thinks this is important because it implies that you can get better no matter what you are going through.

How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil

Book Cover: How the World Really Works by Vaclav Sm

Officially named How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going, this book was written by Vaclav Smil, one of Bill Gates’s favorite authors, is 336 pages, and was published in May, 2022.

Unless you really do the research on your own, most people have no idea how the world works. Some people just know a way of life, but no idea the details that go behind that way of life.

How the World Really Works goes over seven important foundations that make survival and prosperity for humankind possible. The book takes a look at energy, food, the material world, globalization, risks, and our environment.

This book is important for anyone who wants to understand how modern day society is possible, and what we have to do to make sure humans have a future.

That’s another fantastic part about this book. Smil asks questions about looking into the future, and uses science to find the right answers.

Why does Bill Gates recommend How the World Really Works? 

Bill Gates has said, about How the World Really Works, “A new masterpiece from one of my favorite authors. How The World Really Works is a compelling and highly readable book that leaves readers with the fundamental grounding needed to help solve the world’s toughest challenges.”

He also said, “What I love about How the World Really Works is that it sums up all of the incredible knowledge Vaclav has gained over the years.”

Bill Gates believes that in order to fully understand climate change, you must read this book. The book goes into details using data to show you how even organic food can have huge carbon emissions. Other things, too, like steel, cement, and plastic.

The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger

Book Cover: The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger

One of Bill Gates book recommendations is The Ride of a Lifetime is by Bob Iger, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company from 2005 to 2020, who took over the company with three concepts: quality matters, embrace technology, and think bigger.

In 2020, we can look back and see that his principles helped Disney become the largest, most admired media company in the world, with its value being five times higher than when Bob Iger took over.

In The Ride of a Lifetime, Bob Iger shares what skills he thinks makes a great leader in business; skills like optimism, fairness, courage, decisiveness, and more.

Iger has since stepped down as CEO of Disney, and plans to fully retire from the company in 2021.

With his book, he wants to help people be less fearful and more confident in their professional, and even personal lives.

Why Bill Gates recommends the book The Ride of a Lifetime?

Bill Gates recommends The Ride of a Lifetime because he thinks that anyone, not just CEOs, is able to enjoy the stories that Bob Iger has to share.

He thinks that Iger does a great job at explaining what it’s like to be the CEO of a large company. In the book, Iger writes, “You go from plotting growth strategy with investors, to looking at the design of a giant new theme-park attraction with Imagineers, to giving notes on the rough cut of a film, to discussing security measures and board governance and ticket pricing and pay scale… there are also, always, crises and failures for which you can never be fully prepared.”

One of Bill Gates’ favorite parts of The Ride of a Lifetime is when Bob Iger goes to acquire Pixar from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who just minutes before announcing the merger of Disney and Pixar, tells Iger that his cancer has spread to his liver.

Bill Gates even enjoyed Bob Iger’s “lessons to lead by.” He states that normally he doesn’t enjoy these types of lists, but this one was “quite perceptive.”

A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins

Book Cover: A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins

A Thousand Brains was written by Jeff Hawkins who is a neuroscientist, computer engineer, and a bestselling author. This book was published in 2022, and is 288 pages long.

A Thousand Brains is about a theory of intelligence, understanding the brain, and how we can apply our intelligence to the future of AI. 

Even though humans have studied many subjects, and seem to have mastered some, we know very little about our own brains. Though recent improvements in technology allow us to study the brain like never before.

Jeff Hawkins teaches you how cells, neurons, and their connections can somehow create the consciousness that is reading this sentence right now. 

Through his data, he believes that the brain is mapped in a way that creates thousands and thousands of models for everything that we know. He also believes that we can model artificial intelligence after how our own brain works.

What does Bill Gates say about A Thousand Brains?

When Bill Gates recommended the book, A Thousand Brains, he said, “Over the years, I’ve read quite a few books about the brain, most of them written by academic neuroscientists who view it through the lens of sophisticated lab experiments. Recently, I picked up a brain book that’s much more theoretical. It’s called A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by a tech entrepreneur named Jeff Hawkins.”

When he finished the book, he wrote, “All I know for sure is that I’ll be reading a lot more about this topic. My hope is that it will help lead to great breakthroughs in the way we go about solving the world’s hardest problems.”

Seems like he is really interested in the brain since this is one of Bill Gates best book recommendations!

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Keinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Keinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land was written by Robert Keinlein and published in 1961. The book is 408 pages long.

Bill Gates does love his science fiction books and this was one of his first loves. He even said that he and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen first bonded over the work of Robert Keinlein. He was also quoted as saying, “Of all the sci-fi I read as a teenager, Stranger in a Strange Land is my favorite.”

Stranger in a Strange Land follows Valentine Michael Smith, a human who was raised on Mars by Martians. He has never seen any other humans in his life, until one day he is sent to Earth.

Even though he looks human, he is a complete stranger in this new land. What’s more is that he discovers he has “psi” like powers, like telekinesis, precognition, clairvoyance, telepathy, super-human intelligence, and even the ability to control minds.

Smith is infatuated with this new world and human behavior. The concepts of war, jealousy, or clothing are very weird to him. Eventually, he discovers religion and attempts to create a religion of his own.

He isn’t just learning from Earth either. He is teaching them about the Martian traditions in ways that will alter the people on Earth forever.

Fun fact: This book is 208,018 words long!

Fun fact 2: Stranger in a Strange Land was the first science fiction book to ever get on The New York Times best seller list.

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

Book Cover: The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

The Great Influenza is about history’s most lethal influenza virus, which killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years.

The 1918 Flu Epidemic, which happened at the height of World War I, started in Kansas, moved east with the American soldiers, and then cases skyrocketed. As many as 100 million people were killed in the 1918 Flu Epidemic.

The Great Influenza goes hand-in-hand with what humanity is dealing with now, the coronavirus and 2020 pandemic. What can we learn from the 1918 Flu Epidemic and what can we apply to today’s pandemic?

One thing John M. Barry points out, “The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that…those in authority must retain the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart.”

Why does Bill Gates recommend the book The Great Influenza?

Bill Gates recommends The Great Influenza because he says it “will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”

He also thinks it’s a great historical comparison for today’s pandemic. Just like today, people isolated themselves at home, streets were empty, and industries shut down. Just like today, doctors and nurses were considered the heroes.

Bill Gates considers the biggest lesson from the The Great Influenza is that leadership matters. He uses St. Louis and Philadelphia as examples. St. Louis responded quickly and saved lives, while Philadelphia ignored the advice of experts and many people died. It’s almost identical to what’s happening around the United States today.

Another lesson he takes from the book is that the truth matters. America’s leaders in 1918 sugarcoated the bad news to avoid panicking the public. When people started to see other people dying from the flu, they started to distrust the government.

The third lesson he takes away from the book is that philanthropy is important. Gift from people like John D. Rockefeller and Johns Hopkins helped propel science and medicine forward in a way that gave our country hundreds of thousands of well-trained professionals. Professionals that could help treat the disease.

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Book Cover: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Ministry for the Future was written by Kim Stanley Robinson, and published in 2021, just after Bill Gates’s own book about the climate. It is about 576 pages long.

The way the Ministry for the Future is written is very interesting. It uses fictional eyewitness accounts to describe a life where climate change is affecting everyone. Yes, they are made up, but they are very realistic outcomes of climate change.

One of the first chapters goes like this. An American aid worker is living through a historic heat wave a few years from now in Uttar Pradesh, India. The heat knocks out the electric grid and leaves everyone in hell on earth. When the heat wave is finally over, over twenty million people have died.

Though the book has more than just terrifying climate stories, they also include fictional stories where carbon is used as a reserve currency, or creating a United Nations backed organization, called the Ministry for the Future, to help fight climate change.

What does Bill Gates say about The Ministry for the Future?

Bill Gates recommended and wrote a review about The Ministry for the Future on his website. A passage from his recommendation:

“Last year, after my book on climate change came out, several friends told me I should read a novel called The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson. They thought of it, they said, because it explained something in great detail that I spent only one chapter on in my book: the consequences of failing to deal seriously with climate change. It explained the science well, told a great story, and had a surprisingly hopeful ending.”

After he took his friends’ advice about reading the book, he said that The Ministry for the Future has the most realistic scenarios that may play out if we don’t do anything about climate change, like the fact that hot temperatures can literally kill people.

The Ministry for the Future was even one of the books recommended by Barack Obama as his favorite of the year!

Bill Gates’ Book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

Book Cover: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster By Bill Gates

Of course, one of Bill Gates book recommendations is his own book! In his book, he shares what he has learned in over a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address climate problems.

With everything going on in the world, I think it’s important to start sharing this book around, especially when the topic is climate change.

We can never be short on the education of climate change since it affects every single human being on this planet.

Per the Amazon Associates Operating Agreement: As an Amazon Associate, we may earn from purchases when you use our link.


Popular Posts

Per the Amazon Associates Operating Agreement: As an Amazon Associate, we may earn from purchases.

Ninth Books.