Once a year, Bill Gates comes up with his book list at the end of the year. This year is no exception.
Here we would like to draw reader’s attention to the 5 books that Bill Gates recommended for this year Christmas season. With holidays coming up and with the Covid 19 pandemics still raging, it’s time to just stay at home and read– to broaden our mind and to view the challenges we face with a proper lens, the lens of time.
In the past, the book list recommended by Bill Gates had informed our book reading decision. We really have him to thank for the discovery of the gems like Sapiens ( and the book by the same author, 21 Lessons for 21st Century), Factfulness, The Better Angels of Our Nature ( and the book by the same author, Enlightenment now), Range, Shoe Dog, and many others.
Out of the 5 books that Bill Gates recommended this year, we have read one, and we plan to tick off another two in the list: The Splendid and the Vile and The Spy and the Traitor. Both books are related to the events that happened in the past centuries. Reading history books is a great way to understand human nature; instead of obsessing about political news that are ever changing and temporal, we should spend more time reading and thinking about the events that happen over a longer time zone, say 50 to 100 years. Things can go up and down, the wind of fashion can blow one way or another, but human nature won’t change, which is why over the long run, with all the ripples even out, the true trend that reflects the human nature will emerge.
Let’s ride on the trend and discard the noise.
