As I was putting together my list of suggested reading for the summer, I realized that the topics they cover sound pretty heavy for vacation reading. There are books here about gender equality, political polarization, climate change, and the hard truth that life never goes the way young people think it will. It does not exactly sound like the stuff of beach reads.

But none of the five books below feel heavy (even though, at nearly 600 pages, The Lincoln Highway is literally weighty). Each of the writers—three novelists, a journalist, and a scientist—was able to take a meaty subject and make it compelling without sacrificing any complexity.

I loved all five of these books and hope you find something here you’ll enjoy too. And feel free to share some of your favorite recent reads in the comments section below.

The Power, by Naomi Alderman. I’m glad that I followed my older daughter’s recommendation and read this novel. It cleverly uses a single idea—what if all the women in the world suddenly gained the power to produce deadly electric shocks from their bodies?—to explore gender roles and gender equality. Reading The Power, I gained a stronger and more visceral sense of the abuse and injustice many women experience today. And I expanded my appreciation for the people who work on these issues in the U.S. and around the world.

Why We’re Polarized, by Ezra Klein. I’m generally optimistic about the future, but one thing that dampens my outlook a bit is the increasing polarization in America, especially when it comes to politics. In this insightful book, Klein argues persuasively that the cause of this split is identity—the human instinct to let our group identities guide our decision making. The book is fundamentally about American politics, but it’s also a fascinating look at human psychology.

The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. I put Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow on my summer books list back in 2019, but I liked this follow-up novel even more. Set in 1954, it’s about two brothers who are trying to drive from Nebraska to California to find their mother; their trip is thrown way off-course by a volatile teenager from the older brother’s past. Towles takes inspiration from famous hero’s journeys and seems to be saying that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as we might hope.

The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson. When I was promoting my book on climate change last year, a number of people told me I should read this novel, because it dramatized many of the issues I had written about. I’m glad I picked it up, because it’s terrific. It’s so complex that it’s hard to summarize, but Robinson presents a stimulating and engaging story, spanning decades and continents, packed with fascinating ideas and people.

How the World Really Works, by Vaclav Smil. Another masterpiece from one of my favorite authors. Unlike most of Vaclav’s books, which read like textbooks and go super-deep on one topic, this one is written for a general audience and gives an overview of the main areas of his expertise. If you want a brief but thorough education in numeric thinking about many of the fundamental forces that shape human life, this is the book to read. It’s a tour de force. Bonus: You can download a free chapter from How the World Really Works on the full review page.

Happy holidays! I hope you and your loved ones are enjoying the coziest time of year—and that you are able to find time to enjoy some good books in between spending time with family. 

If you’re in the market for something new to read, I have put together a list of four books I enjoyed this year. All four are, in one way or another, about making sense of the world around you. This wasn’t an intentional theme, but I wasn’t surprised to see it emerge: It’s natural to try and wrap your head around things during times of rapid change, like we’re living through now. 

Two of the books on my list focus on the future and how the rise of artificial intelligence and huge technological advances are changing the ways we live, learn, and love. One looks to the past for answers—the lessons it offers about how leaders have tackled tough times before are both comforting and fascinating. And the fourth book on my list is all about the present. It will help you appreciate the amazing, invisible backbone of society that surrounds us every day. 

I’ve also thrown in one bonus pick, just in case you are looking for a gift for a tennis lover in your life. You can never have enough books, especially this time of year!

An Unfinished Love Story, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I’m a huge fan of Doris’s books, but I didn’t know a lot about her personal life until I read her new autobiography. The book focuses on her life with her late husband, who served as a policy expert and speechwriter to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson during one of the most turbulent times in recent U.S. history. Doris is such a talented writer that the chapters about her love story are just as engaging and enlightening as the chapters about the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War.

The Anxious Generation, by Jonathan Haidt. This book is a must-read for anyone raising, working with, or teaching young people today. It made me reflect on how much of my younger years—which were often spent running around outside without parental supervision, sometimes getting into trouble—helped shape who I am today. Haidt explains how the shift from play-based childhoods to phone-based childhoods is transforming how kids develop and process emotions. I appreciate that he doesn’t just lay out the problem—he offers real solutions that are worth considering.

Engineering in Plain Sight, by Grady Hillhouse. Have you ever looked at an unusual pipe sticking out of the ground and thought, “What the hell is that?” If so, this is the perfect book for you. Hillhouse takes all of the mysterious structures we see every day, from cable boxes to transformers to cell phone towers, and explains what they are and how they work. It’s the kind of read that will reward your curiosity and answer questions you didn’t even know you had.

The Coming Wave, by Mustafa Suleyman. Mustafa has a deep understanding of scientific history, and he offers the best explanation I’ve seen yet of how artificial intelligence—along with other scientific advances, like gene editing—is poised to reshape every aspect of society. He lays out the risks we need to prepare for and the challenges we need to overcome so we can reap the benefits of these technologies without the dangers. If you want to understand the rise of AI, this is the best book to read.

A bonus read: Federer, by Doris Henkel. This book isn’t for everyone. It’s pretty expensive, and it weighs as much as a small dog. But if you—or someone you love—is a fan of Roger’s, Federer is a wonderful retrospective of his life and career. I thought I knew pretty much everything about Roger’s history with tennis, but I learned a ton, especially about his early years. It includes a lot of photographs I’d never seen before. This is a special treat for the tennis fan in your life.

When I finish one book and decide what to read next, there’s rarely a logical connection between the two. I might get to the end of a history book on the Civil War and then pick up a sci-fi novel set in the distant future. The same goes for shows and movies: I gravitate toward whatever sounds most interesting at the moment.

But when I put together a list of recommendations, it’s fun to look back and see if there’s a thread that runs through them. This time, there definitely is.

The books and TV series on my summer list all touch on the idea of service to others—why we do it, the things that can make it difficult, and why we should do it anyway. One is a novel about the sacrifices made by American nurses on the front lines of the Vietnam War. Another is a call for (and a guide to) being more generous in the digital age. Others include a rumination on connecting with other people and a look at the evolution of how schoolteachers support their students. Even the TV series is a fictional show about government agents protecting their country.

I didn’t intend to go deep on the idea of service, but it’s certainly as relevant today as ever. At a time when wars dominate the headlines and our politics is becoming more and more polarized, it’s inspiring to appreciate those who help others and think about how we can be more generous in our own lives.

Here’s my list, with links to longer reviews of each entry. Do you ever look back and discover unexpected themes in the things you’ve read, watched, and listened to?

The Women, by Kristin Hannah. This terrific novel tells the story of a U.S. Army nurse who serves two tours on the frontlines in Vietnam before returning home to a country rocked by protest and anti-war sentiment. The author, Kristin Hannah, has written a number of books that did quite well—including this one—and I can see why. It’s a beautifully written tribute to a group of veterans who deserve more appreciation for the incredible sacrifices they made. 

Infectious Generosity, by Chris Anderson. Chris, who has been the curator of TED Talks for more than two decades, explores how the internet can amplify the impact of generosity. He offers a plan for how everyone—including individuals, governments, and businesses—can foster more generosity. It’s not just about giving money; he argues that we need to expand our definition of generosity. If you want to help create a more equitable world but don’t know where to start, Infectious Generosity is for you.

Slow Horses. I’m a sucker for stories about spies. I’ve read several of John le Carré’s novels, and two of my favorite movies are Spy Game and Three Days of the Condor. I’d put Slow Horses up there with the best of them. It’s a British series about undercover agents assigned to Slough House, a fictional group inside MI5 where people are sent when they mess up badly, but not quite badly enough to get fired. Gary Oldman plays the head of Slough House, who’s basically the polar opposite of James Bond. He’s a slob and an alcoholic, but then he surprises you with some amazing bit of spycraft. Like le Carré novels, Slow Horses has enough complex characters and plots that you have to really pay attention, but it pays off in the end. (Available in the U.S. on Apple TV+.)

Brave New Words, by Sal Khan. Sal—the founder of Khan Academy—has been a pioneer in the field of education technology since long before the rise of artificial intelligence. So the vision he lays out in Brave New Words for how AI will improve education is well grounded. Sal argues that AI will radically improve both outcomes for students and the experiences of teachers, and help make sure everyone has access to a world-class education. He’s well aware that innovation has had only a marginal impact in the classroom so far but makes a compelling case that AI will be different. No one has sharper insights into the future of education than Sal does, and I can't recommend Brave New Words enough.

How to Know a Person, by David Brooks. I liked David’s previous book, The Road to Character, but this one is even better.  His key premise is one I haven't found elsewhere: that conversational and social skills aren't just innate traits—they can be learned and improved upon. And he provides practical tips for what he calls “loud listening,” a practice that can help the people around you feel heard and valued. It’s more than a guide to better conversations; it’s a blueprint for a more connected and humane way of living.

At the end of the year, it’s always fun to look back on some of the best books I read. For 2023, three came to mind right away, each of them deeply informative and well written. I’ve also included economics courses by a phenomenal lecturer that I watched more than a decade ago but am still recommending to friends and family today. Just for fun, I threw in a playlist of great holiday songs from past and present, and from the U.S. and around the world.

I didn’t have time to write up a full review, but I should mention that I just watched the series All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix. I had read the book, which is amazing, sometimes an adaptation of a book you love can be disappointing. That’s not the case here—the series is just as good. The actor who plays von Rumpel, a Nazi gem hunter and the villain in the story, is especially memorable.

I hope you find something fun here to read, watch, or listen to. And happy holidays!

The Song of the Cell, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. All of us will get sick at some point. All of us will have loved ones who get sick. To understand what’s happening in those moments—and to feel optimistic that things will get better—it helps to know something about cells, the building blocks of life. Mukherjee’s latest book will give you that knowledge. He starts by explaining how life evolved from single-celled organisms, and then he shows how every human illness or consequence of aging comes down to something going wrong with the body’s cells. Mukherjee, who’s both an oncologist and a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, brings all of his skills to bear in this fantastic book.

Not the End of the World, by Hannah Ritchie. Hannah Ritchie used to believe—as many environmental activists do—that she was “living through humanity’s most tragic period.” But when she started looking at the data, she realized that’s not the case. Things are bad, and they’re worse than they were in the distant past, but on virtually every measure, they’re getting better. Ritchie is now lead researcher at Our World in Data, and in Not the End of the World, she uses data to tell a counterintuitive story that contradicts the doomsday scenarios on climate and other environmental topics without glossing over the challenges. Everyone who wants to have an informed conversation about climate change should read this book.

Invention and Innovation, by Vaclav Smil. Are we living in the most innovative era of human history? A lot of people would say so, but Smil argues otherwise. In fact, he writes, the current era shows “unmistakable signs of technical stagnation and slowing advances.” I don’t agree, but that’s not surprising—having read all 44 of his books and spoken with him several times, I know he’s not as optimistic as I am about the prospects of innovation. But even though we don’t see the future the same way, nobody is better than Smil at explaining the past. If you want to know how human ingenuity brought us to this moment in time, I highly recommend Invention and Innovation.

Online economics lectures by Timothy Taylor. I’ve watched a lot of lecture series online, and Taylor is one of my favorite professors. All three of his series on Wondrium are fantastic. The New Global Economy teaches you about the basic economic history of different regions and how markets work. Economics is best suited for people who want to understand the principles of economics in a deep way. Unexpected Economics probably has the broadest audience, because Taylor applies those principles to things in everyday life, including gift-giving, traffic, natural disasters, sports, and more. You can’t go wrong with any of Taylor’s lectures.

A holiday playlist. This one doesn’t need much explanation. I love holiday music and have put together a list of some favorites—classics and modern tunes, from the U.S. and around the world.

For the past decade, I’ve recommended great books to read each summer. This year, I decided to mix it up and try something different. I’m recommending just two books—one novel and one nonfiction—plus a mix of other things I’ve enjoyed lately, including a TV series set in Denmark and a few dozen songs that are on regular rotation for me. Whatever your summer plans are, I hope you find something here to help you make the most of them.

Books

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. This terrific novel tells the story of two friends who grow up bonding over Super Mario Bros. and then, in college, start making their own games together. I really related to the story—in fact, it reminded me a lot of my relationship with Paul Allen and our work together at Microsoft. Tomorrow was one of the biggest books of last year, and it’s easy to see why. Zevin is a great writer who makes you care deeply about her characters.

Born in Blackness, by Howard French. I’m a student of Africa, but I still learned a lot from this thoughtful, well-researched book. French, a journalist of African descent, challenges the standard Western accounts of the continent’s history. It was far from stateless and primitive when Europeans arrived. In reality, he explains, various African kingdoms had established city-states that rivaled Europe’s in terms of political organization, military power, commerce, art, and exploration. I mean it as a compliment when I say that Born in Blackness left me wanting to know more.

TV

Borgen (available on Netflix in the U.S.). I’ve binged all four seasons of this Danish political drama. Named for the palace in Copenhagen where the Danish government is based, it follows the country’s (fictional) first female prime minister as she navigates a complex political landscape. I’m fascinated by how political coalitions come together and stay together, and I loved watching the PM, Birgitte Nyborg, figure it all out. She’s a principled and talented leader who’s also fallible and sometimes misguided. Borgen is entertaining above all else, but I’ve learned a ton from watching it too.

My summer playlist

Here’s a Spotify playlist with many of my favorite tracks—songs newer and older that have stuck with me over the years. You’ll find everything from Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and the Beatles to Vampire Weekend, Adele, and U2.

The holidays are a great time for annual traditions. Like many people, I love to spend the end of the year celebrating the holidays with my family. (We usually wear matching pajamas on Christmas.) I also enjoy sitting down to write my annual list of holiday books, which I’ve done around this time of year for the last decade. It’s always a fun opportunity for me to reflect on everything I’ve read recently.

This time, though, I decided to try something different. Rather than limit myself to things I’ve read over the previous twelve months, I instead picked books regardless of when I finished them.

One of the selections has been a favorite of mine since middle school. Another is a brand-new memoir that I just finished. This isn’t a complete list of my favorite books of all time—that list would include a lot more Vaclav Smil and Elizabeth Kolbert. But all five are books that I have recommended to my family and friends over the years.

I hope you find something new to read this winter—and that you and your loved ones enjoy celebrating your favorite traditions together over the holiday season.

Best introduction to grownup sci-fi: Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. Paul Allen and I fell in love with Heinlein when we were just kids, and this book is still one of my favorite sci-fi novels of all time. It tells the story of a young man who returns to Earth after growing up on Mars and starts a new religion. I think the best science fiction pushes your thinking about what’s possible in the future, and Heinlein managed to predict the rise of hippie culture years before it emerged.

Best memoir by a rock star: Surrender, by Bono. This book came out this month, so it’s the most recent one I’ve read on my list. If you’re a U2 fan, there is a good chance you already plan to check it out. Even if you’re not, it’s a super fun read about how a boy from the suburbs of Dublin grew up to become a world-famous rock star and philanthropist. I’m lucky enough to call Bono a friend, but a lot of the stories he tells in Surrender were new to me.

Best guide to leading a country: Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I can’t read enough about Abraham Lincoln, and this is one of the best books on the subject. It feels especially relevant now when our country is once again facing violent insurrection, difficult questions about race, and deep ideological divides. Goodwin is one of America’s best biographers, and Team of Rivals is arguably her masterpiece.

Best guide to getting out of your own way: The Inner Game of Tennis, by Timothy Gallwey. This book from 1974 is a must-read for anyone who plays tennis, but I think even people who have never played will get something out of it. Gallwey argues that your state of mind is just as important—if not more important—than your physical fitness. He gives excellent advice about how to move on constructively from mistakes, which I’ve tried to follow both on and off the court over the years.

Best book about the periodic table: Mendeleyev’s Dream, by Paul Strathern. The history of chemistry is filled with quirky characters like Dimitri Mendeleyev, the Russian scientist who first proposed the periodic table after it allegedly came to him in a dream. Strathern’s book traces that history all the way back to its origins in ancient Greece. It’s a fascinating look at how science develops and how human curiosity has evolved over the millennia.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with science fiction. Paul Allen and I would spend countless hours discussing Isaac Asimov’s original Foundation trilogy. I read every book by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Heinlein. (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress was a particular favorite.) There was something so thrilling to me about these stories that pushed the limits of what was possible.

As I got older, I started reading a lot more non-fiction. I was still interested in books that explored the implications of innovation, but it felt more important to learn something about our real world along the way. Lately, though, I’ve found myself drawn back to the kinds of books I would’ve loved as a kid.

My holiday reading list this year includes two terrific science fiction stories. One takes place nearly 12 light-years away from our sun, and the other is set right here in the United States—but both made me think about how people can use technology to respond to challenges. I’ve also included a pair of non-fiction books about cutting-edge science and a novel that made me look at one of history’s most famous figures in a new light.

I read a lot of great books this year—including John Doerr’s latest about climate change—but these were some of my favorites.

A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins. Few subjects have captured the imaginations of science fiction writers like artificial intelligence. If you’re interested in learning more about what it might take to create a true AI, this book offers a fascinating theory. Hawkins may be best known as the co-inventor of the PalmPilot, but he’s spent decades thinking about the connections between neuroscience and machine learning, and there’s no better introduction to his thinking than this book.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. The CRISPR gene editing system is one of the coolest and perhaps most consequential scientific breakthroughs of the last decade. I’m familiar with it because of my work at the foundation—we’re funding a number of projects that use the technology—but I still learned a lot from this comprehensive and accessible book about its discovery by Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues. Isaacson does a good job highlighting the most important ethical questions around gene editing.

Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I love a good robot story, and Ishiguro’s novel about an “artificial friend” to a sick young girl is no exception. Although it takes place in a dystopian future, the robots aren’t a force for evil. Instead, they serve as companions to keep people company. This book made me think about what life with super intelligent robots might look like—and whether we’ll treat these kinds of machines as pieces of technology or as something more.

Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. If you’re a Shakespeare fan, you’ll love this moving novel about how his personal life might’ve influenced the writing of one of his most famous plays. O’Farrell has built her story on two facts we know to be true about “The Bard”: his son Hamnet died at the age of 11, and a couple years later, Shakespeare wrote a tragedy called Hamlet. I especially enjoyed reading about his wife, Anne, who is imagined here as an almost supernatural figure.

Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. Like most people, I was first introduced to Weir’s writing through The Martian. His latest novel is a wild tale about a high school science teacher who wakes up in a different star system with no memory of how he got there. The rest of the story is all about how he uses science and engineering to save the day. It’s a fun read, and I finished the whole thing in one weekend.

When I finish one book and am deciding what to read next, there usually isn’t always rhyme or reason to what I pick. Sometimes I’ll read one great book and get inspired to read several more about the same subject. Other times I am eager to follow a recommendation from someone I respect.

Lately, though, I find myself reaching for books about the complicated relationship between humanity and nature. Maybe it’s because everyone’s lives have been upended by a virus. Or maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much time this year talking about what we need to do to avoid a climate disaster.

Whatever the reason, most of the books on my summer reading list this year touch on what happens when people come into conflict with the world around them. I’ve included a look at how researchers are trying to undo damage done to the planet by humans, a deep dive about how your body keeps you safe from microscopic invaders, a president’s memoir that addresses the fallout from an oil spill, and a novel about a group of ordinary people fighting to save the trees. (There’s also a fascinating look at the downfall of one of America’s greatest companies.)

I hope at least one of these books sparks your interest this summer.

Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric, by Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann. How could a company as big and successful as GE fail? I’ve been thinking about that question for several years, and Lights Out finally gave me many of the answers I was seeking. The authors give you an unflinching look at the mistakes and missteps made by GE’s leadership. If you’re in any kind of leadership role—whether at a company, a non-profit, or somewhere else—there’s a lot you can learn here.

Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Kolbert’s latest is the most straightforward examination of “humanity versus nature” on this list. She describes it as “a book about people trying to solve problems caused by people trying to solve problems.” She writes about a number of the ways that people are intervening with nature, including gene drive and geoengineering—two topics that I’m particularly interested in. Like all of her books, it’s an enjoyable read.

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama. I am almost always interested in books about American presidents, and I especially loved A Promised Land. The memoir covers his early career up through the mission that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. President Obama is unusually honest about his experience in the White House, including how isolating it is to be the person who ultimately calls the shots. It’s a fascinating look at what it’s like to steer a country through challenging times.

The Overstory, by Richard Powers. This is one of the most unusual novels I’ve read in years. The Overstory follows the lives of nine people and examines their connection with trees. Some of the characters come together over the course of the book, while others stay on their own. Even though the book takes a pretty extreme view towards the need to protect forests, I was moved by each character’s passion for their cause and finished the book eager to learn more about trees.

An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives, by Matt Richtel. Richtel wrote his book before the pandemic, but this exploration of the human immune system is nevertheless a valuable read that will help you understand what it takes to stop COVID-19. He keeps the subject accessible by focusing on four patients, each of whom is forced to manage their immune system in one way or another. Their stories make for a super interesting look at the science of immunity.

In tough times—and there’s no doubt that 2020 qualifies as tough times—those of us who love to read turn to all kinds of different books. This year, sometimes I chose to go deeper on a difficult subject, like the injustices that underlie this year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Other times I needed a change of pace, something lighter at the end of the day. As a result, I read a wide range of books, and a lot of excellent ones. Here are five books on a variety of subjects that I’d recommend as we wrap up 2020. I hope you find something that helps you—or the book lover in your life—finish the year on a good note.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander. Like many white people, I’ve tried to deepen my understanding of systemic racism in recent months. Alexander’s book offers an eye-opening look into how the criminal justice system unfairly targets communities of color, and especially Black communities. It’s especially good at explaining the history and the numbers behind mass incarceration. I was familiar with some of the data, but Alexander really helps put it in context. I finished the book more convinced than ever that we need a more just approach to sentencing and more investment in communities of color.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein. I started following Epstein’s work after watching his fantastic 2014 TED talk on sports performance. In this fascinating book, he argues that although the world seems to demand more and more specialization—in your career, for example—what we actually need is more people “who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress.” His examples run from Roger Federer to Charles Darwin to Cold War-era experts on Soviet affairs. I think his ideas even help explain some of Microsoft’s success, because we hired people who had real breadth within their field and across domains. If you’re a generalist who has ever felt overshadowed by your specialist colleagues, this book is for you.

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, by Erik Larson. Sometimes history books end up feeling more relevant than their authors could have imagined. That’s the case with this brilliant account of the years 1940 and 1941, when English citizens spent almost every night huddled in basements and Tube stations as Germany tried to bomb them into submission. The fear and anxiety they felt—while much more severe than what we’re experiencing with COVID-19—sounded familiar. Larson gives you a vivid sense of what life was like for average citizens during this awful period, and he does a great job profiling some of the British leaders who saw them through the crisis, including Winston Churchill and his close advisers. Its scope is too narrow to be the only book you ever read on World War II, but it’s a great addition to the literature focused on that tragic period.

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War, by Ben Macintyre. This nonfiction account focuses on Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who became a double agent for the British, and Aldrich Ames, the American turncoat who likely betrayed him. Macintyre’s retelling of their stories comes not only from Western sources (including Gordievsky himself) but also from the Russian perspective. It’s every bit as exciting as my favorite spy novels.

Breath from Salt: A Deadly Genetic Disease, a New Era in Science, and the Patients and Families Who Changed Medicine, by Bijal P. Trivedi. This book is truly uplifting. It documents a story of remarkable scientific innovation and how it has improved the lives of almost all cystic fibrosis patients and their families. This story is especially meaningful to me because I know families who’ve benefited from the new medicines described in this book. I suspect we’ll see many more books like this in the coming years, as biomedical miracles emerge from labs at an ever-greater pace.

Most of my conversations and meetings these days are about COVID-19 and how we can stem the tide. But I’m also often asked about what I am reading and watching—either because people want to learn more about pandemics, or because they are looking for a distraction. I’m always happy to talk about great books and TV shows (and to hear what other people are doing, since I’m usually in the market for recommendations).

So, in addition to the five new book reviews I always write for my summer book list, I included a number of other recommendations. I hope you find something that catches your interest.

My 2020 summer book recommendations

The Choice, by Dr. Edith Eva Eger. This book is partly a memoir and partly a guide to processing trauma. Eger was only sixteen years old when she and her family got sent to Auschwitz. After surviving unbelievable horrors, she moved to the United States and became a therapist. Her unique background gives her amazing insight, and I think many people will find comfort right now from her suggestions on how to handle difficult situations.

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. This is the kind of novel you’ll think and talk about for a long time after you finish it. The plot is a bit hard to explain, because it involves six inter-related stories that take place centuries apart (including one I particularly loved about a young American doctor on a sailing ship in the South Pacific in the mid-1800s). But if you’re in the mood for a really compelling tale about the best and worst of humanity, I think you’ll find yourself as engrossed in it as I was.

The Ride of a Lifetime, by Bob Iger. This is one of the best business books I’ve read in several years. Iger does a terrific job explaining what it’s really like to be the CEO of a large company. Whether you’re looking for business insights or just an entertaining read, I think anyone would enjoy his stories about overseeing Disney during one of the most transformative times in its history.

The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry. We’re living through an unprecedented time right now. But if you’re looking for a historical comparison, the 1918 influenza pandemic is as close as you’re going to get. Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history. Even though 1918 was a very different time from today, The Great Influenza is a good reminder that we’re still dealing with many of the same challenges.

Good Economics for Hard Times, by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo. Banerjee and Duflo won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences last year, and they’re two of the smartest economists working today. Fortunately for us, they’re also very good at making economics accessible to the average person. Their newest book takes on inequality and political divisions by focusing on policy debates that are at the forefront in wealthy countries like the United States.

Other books worth reading

The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness, by Andy Puddicombe. For years, I was a skeptic about meditation. Now I do it as often as I can—three times a week, if time allows. Andy’s book and the app he created, Headspace, are what made me a convert. Andy, a former Buddhist monk, offers lots of helpful metaphors to explain potentially tricky concepts in meditation. At a time when we all could use a few minutes to de-stress and re-focus each day, this is a great place to start.

Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer. If you’re looking to work on a new skill, you could do worse than learning to memorize things. Foer is a science writer who got interested in how memory works, and why some people seem to have an amazing ability to recall facts. He takes you inside the U.S. Memory Championship—yes, that’s a real thing—and introduces you to the techniques that, amazingly, allowed him to win the contest one year.

The Martian, by Andy Weir. You may remember the movie from a few years ago, when Matt Damon—playing a botanist who’s been stranded on Mars—sets aside his fear and says, “I’m going to science the s*** out of this.” We’re doing the same thing with the novel coronavirus.

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. The main character in this novel is living through a situation that now feels very relatable: He can’t leave the building he’s living in. But he’s not stuck there because of a disease; it’s 1922, and he’s a Russian count who’s serving a life sentence under house arrest in a hotel. I thought it was a fun, clever, and surprisingly upbeat story about making the best of your surroundings.

The Rosie Trilogy, by Graeme Simsion. All three of the Rosie novels made me laugh out loud. They’re about a genetics professor with Asperger’s Syndrome who (in the first book) goes looking for a wife and then (in the second and third books) starts a family. Ultimately the story is about getting inside the mind and heart of someone a lot of people see as odd, and discovering that he isn’t really that different from anybody else. Melinda got me started on these books, and I’m glad she did.

I don’t read a lot of comics or graphic novels, but I’ve really enjoyed the few that I have picked up. The best ones combine amazing storytelling with striking visuals. In her memoir The Best We Could Do, for example, Thi Bui gains a new appreciation for what her parents—who survived the Vietnam War—went through. It’s a deeply personal book that explores what it means to be a parent and a refugee.

On the lighter side is Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened, by Allie Brosh. You will rip through it in three hours, tops. But you’ll wish it went on longer, because it’s funny and smart as hell. I must have read Melinda a dozen hilarious passages out loud.

Finally, I love the way that former NASA engineer Randall Munroe turns offbeat science lessons into super-engaging comics. The two books of his that I’ve read and highly recommend are What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, and XKCD Volume 0. I also have Randall’s latest book, How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, on my bookshelf and hope to read it soon. If you’ve read it, let me know what you think in the comments.

TV shows and movies you might enjoy

Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak. This documentary series on Netflix introduces you to four people who are working super-hard in different parts of the world to prevent epidemics. Since the series was filmed some time ago, the episodes are focused not on the coronavirus but on influenza—which was widely regarded as the most likely culprit for a big outbreak. But Pandemic still gives you a sense of the inspiring work that heroic doctors, researchers, and aid workers are doing to prevent the very thing we’re all going through right now.

A few of the series that Melinda and I are keeping up with include A Million Little Things, This Is Us, and Ozark. And I’m planning to finally watch I, Claudius—a 1970s BBC series set during the Roman empire—after reading a rave review in The Economist. I’ve read a lot about the Roman times, but this series sounds like an interesting look at the era.

On the much more escapist front, a few weeks ago I re-watched one of my favorite movies, Spy Game, starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. It has lots of good surprises, so I don’t want to spoil the plot for you. Not a lot of people have heard of Spy Game, but I’ve probably seen it 12 times.

I’ve made lists of these books and shows on Likewise.

The wild card: online bridge

I’ve been playing bridge for years—Warren Buffett is my favorite partner. We don’t get together in person now that we’re sheltering in place, but we still play online. There are lots of great options out there, including this guide to learning the game, and the online platform that Warren and I play on, which is called Bridge Base. (I'll keep our screen names between us.) I got worried a couple months ago when their service briefly went down, but it was back up in no time. I was surprised at how relieved I was to see it running again.

As the clock ticks closer to midnight on New Year’s Eve, it’s fun to look back at what you’ve accomplished this year. December is a great time to take stock of everything you’ve done over the last twelve months—including all of the books you’ve read.

Because I’m a data guy, I like to look at my reading list and see if any trends emerge. This year, I picked up a bit more fiction than usual. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I seemed to be drawn to stories that let me explore another world.

I’m currently trying to finish Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell before the end of the year (it’s amazingly clever but a bit hard to follow). Along with A Gentleman in Moscow and An American Marriage, I finished The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion and a terrific novel about a woman who deals with grief by bonding with a Great Dane. I even picked up a short story collection in David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.

Maybe next year’s end-of-year books post will finally include the Wallace novel I’ve been wanting to read for a while: Infinite Jest.

For this year’s holiday books list, I chose five titles that I think you’ll also enjoy reading. I think they’re all solid choices to help wrap up your 2019 or start 2020 on a good note:

An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones. My daughter Jenn recommended that I read this novel, which tells the story of a black couple in the South whose marriage gets torn apart by a horrible incident of injustice. Jones is such a good writer that she manages to make you empathize with both of her main characters, even after one makes a difficult decision. The subject matter is heavy but thought-provoking, and I got sucked into Roy and Celestial’s tragic love story.

These Truths, by Jill Lepore. Lepore has pulled off the seemingly impossible in her latest book: covering the entire history of the United States in just 800 pages. She’s made a deliberate choice to make diverse points of view central to the narrative, and the result is the most honest and unflinching account of the American story I’ve ever read. Even if you’ve read a lot about U.S. history, I’m confident you will learn something new from These Truths.

Growth, by Vaclav Smil. When I first heard that one of my favorite authors was working on a new book about growth, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. (Two years ago, I wrote that I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie. I stand by that statement.) His latest doesn’t disappoint. As always, I don’t agree with everything Smil says, but he remains one of the best thinkers out there at documenting the past and seeing the big picture.

Prepared, by Diane Tavenner. As any parent knows, preparing your kids for life after high school is a long and sometimes difficult journey. Tavenner—who created a network of some of the best performing schools in the nation—has put together a helpful guidebook about how to make that process as smooth and fruitful as possible. Along the way, she shares what she’s learned about teaching kids not just what they need to get into college, but how to live a good life.

Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker. I read a couple of great books this year about human behavior, and this was one of the most interesting and profound. Both Jenn and John Doerr urged me to read it, and I’m glad I did. Everyone knows that a good night’s sleep is important—but what exactly counts as a good night’s sleep? And how do you make one happen? Walker has persuaded me to change my bedtime habits to up my chances. If your New Year’s resolution is to be healthier in 2020, his advice is a good place to start.

I always like to pick out a bunch of books to bring with me whenever I get ready to go on vacation. More often than not, I end up taking more books than I could possibly read on one trip. My philosophy is that I’d rather have too much to read on a trip than too little.

If you’re like me, you’re probably starting to think about what’s on your summer reading list this year—and I can’t recommend the books below highly enough.

None of them are what most people think of as a light read. All but one deal with the idea of disruption, but I don’t mean “disruption” in the way tech people usually mean it. I’ve recently found myself drawn to books about upheaval (that’s even the title of the one of them)—whether it’s the Soviet Union right after the Bolshevik revolution, the United States during times of war, or a global reevaluation of our economic system.

If you’re looking for something that’s more of a typical summer book, I recommend Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Result. (And if you haven’t read the first two books in the Rosie trilogy, summer vacation is the perfect time to start!) I also can’t resist a plug for Melinda’s new book The Moment of Lift. I know I’m biased, but it’s one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.

Here is my full summer reading list:

Upheaval, by Jared Diamond. I’m a big fan of everything Jared has written, and his latest is no exception. The book explores how societies react during moments of crisis. He uses a series of fascinating case studies to show how nations managed existential challenges like civil war, foreign threats, and general malaise. It sounds a bit depressing, but I finished the book even more optimistic about our ability to solve problems than I started.

Nine Pints, by Rose George. If you get grossed out by blood, this one probably isn’t for you. But if you’re like me and find it fascinating, you’ll enjoy this book by a British journalist with an especially personal connection to the subject. I’m a big fan of books that go deep on one specific topic, so Nine Pints (the title refers to the volume of blood in the average adult) was right up my alley. It’s filled with super-interesting facts that will leave you with a new appreciation for blood.

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. It seems like everyone I know has read this book. I finally joined the club after my brother-in-law sent me a copy, and I’m glad I did. Towles’s novel about a count sentenced to life under house arrest in a Moscow hotel is fun, clever, and surprisingly upbeat. Even if you don’t enjoy reading about Russia as much as I do (I’ve read every book by Dostoyevsky), A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing story that anyone can enjoy.

Presidents of War, by Michael Beschloss. My interest in all aspects of the Vietnam War is the main reason I decided to pick up this book. By the time I finished it, I learned a lot not only about Vietnam but about the eight other major conflicts the U.S. entered between the turn of the 19th century and the 1970s. Beschloss’s broad scope lets you draw important cross-cutting lessons about presidential leadership.

The Future of Capitalism, by Paul Collier. Collier’s latest book is a thought-provoking look at a topic that’s top of mind for a lot of people right now. Although I don’t agree with him about everything—I think his analysis of the problem is better than his proposed solutions—his background as a development economist gives him a smart perspective on where capitalism is headed.

If you’re like me, you love giving—or getting!—books during the holidays. A great read is the perfect gift: thoughtful and easy to wrap (with no batteries or assembly required). Plus, I think everyone could use a few more books in their lives. I usually don’t consider whether something would make a good present when I’m putting together my end of year book list—but this year’s selections are highly giftable.

My list is pretty eclectic this year. From a how-to guide about meditation to a deep dive on autonomous weapons to a thriller about the fall of a once-promising company, there’s something for everyone. If you’re looking for a fool-proof gift for your friends and family, you can’t go wrong with one of these.

Educated, by Tara Westover. Tara never went to school or visited a doctor until she left home at 17. I never thought I’d relate to a story about growing up in a Mormon survivalist household, but she’s such a good writer that she got me to reflect on my own life while reading about her extreme childhood. Melinda and I loved this memoir of a young woman whose thirst for learning was so strong that she ended up getting a Ph.D. from Cambridge University.

Army of None, by Paul Scharre. Autonomous weapons aren’t exactly top of mind for most around the holidays, but this thought-provoking look at A.I. in warfare is hard to put down. It’s an immensely complicated topic, but Scharre offers clear explanations and presents both the pros and cons of machine-driven warfare. His fluency with the subject should come as no surprise: he’s a veteran who helped draft the U.S. government’s policy on autonomous weapons.

Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou. A bunch of my friends recommended this one to me. Carreyrou gives you the definitive insider’s look at the rise and fall of Theranos. The story is even crazier than I expected, and I found myself unable to put it down once I started. This book has everything: elaborate scams, corporate intrigue, magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships, and the demise of a company once valued at nearly $10 billion.

21 Lessons for the 21^st Century, by Yuval Noah Harari. I’m a big fan of everything Harari has written, and his latest is no exception. While Sapiens and Homo Deus covered the past and future respectively, this one is all about the present. If 2018 has left you overwhelmed by the state of the world, 21 Lessons offers a helpful framework for processing the news and thinking about the challenges we face.

The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness, by Andy Puddicombe. I’m sure 25-year-old me would scoff at this one, but Melinda and I have gotten really into meditation lately. The book starts with Puddicombe’s personal journey from a university student to a Buddhist monk and then becomes an entertaining explainer on how to meditate. If you’re thinking about trying mindfulness, this is the perfect introduction.

I’ve read some terrific books lately. When I pulled together this list of five that you might enjoy this summer, I realized that several of my choices wrestle with big questions. What makes a genius tick? Why do bad things happen to good people? Where does humanity come from, and where are we headed?

Despite the heavy subject matter, all these books were fun to read, and most of them are pretty short. Even the longest (Leonardo) goes quickly. If you’re looking for something to read over the next few months, you can’t go wrong with:

Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson. I think Leonardo was one of the most fascinating people ever. Although today he’s best known as a painter, Leonardo had an absurdly wide range of interests, from human anatomy to the theater. Isaacson does the best job I’ve seen of pulling together the different strands of Leonardo’s life and explaining what made him so exceptional. A worthy follow-up to Isaacson’s great biographies of Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs.

Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved, by Kate Bowler. When Bowler, a professor at Duke Divinity School, is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, she sets out to understand why it happened. Is it a test of her character? The result is a heartbreaking, surprisingly funny memoir about faith and coming to grips with your own mortality.

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. I thought I knew everything I needed to know about Abraham Lincoln, but this novel made me rethink parts of his life. It blends historical facts from the Civil War with fantastical elements—it’s basically a long conversation among 166 ghosts, including Lincoln’s deceased son. I got new insight into the way Lincoln must have been crushed by the weight of both grief and responsibility. This is one of those fascinating, ambiguous books you’ll want to discuss with a friend when you’re done.

Origin Story: A Big History of Everything, by David Christian. David created my favorite course of all time, Big History. It tells the story of the universe from the big bang to today’s complex societies, weaving together insights and evidence from various disciplines into a single narrative. If you haven’t taken Big History yet, Origin Story is a great introduction. If you have, it’s a great refresher. Either way, the book will leave you with a greater appreciation of humanity’s place in the universe.

Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund. I’ve been recommending this book since the day it came out. Hans, the brilliant global-health lecturer who died last year, gives you a breakthrough way of understanding basic truths about the world—how life is getting better, and where the world still needs to improve. And he weaves in unforgettable anecdotes from his life. It’s a fitting final word from a brilliant man, and one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Reading is my favorite way to indulge my curiosity. Although I’m lucky that I get to meet with a lot of interesting people and visit fascinating places through my work, I still think books are the best way to explore new topics that interest you.

This year I picked up books on a bunch of diverse subjects. I really enjoyed Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick. I recommend it to anyone who wants a compelling history lesson on how ISIS managed to seize power in Iraq.

On the other end of the spectrum, I loved John Green’s new novel, Turtles All the Way Down, which tells the story of a young woman who tracks down a missing billionaire. It deals with serious themes like mental illness, but John’s stories are always entertaining and full of great literary references.

Another good book I read recently is The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. I’ve been trying to learn more about the forces preventing economic mobility in the U.S., and it helped me understand the role federal policies have played in creating racial segregation in American cities.

I’ve written longer reviews about some of the best books I read this year. They include a memoir by one of my favorite comedians, a heartbreaking tale of poverty in America, a deep dive into the history of energy, and not one but two stories about the Vietnam War. If you’re looking to curl up by the fireplace with a great read this holiday season, you can’t go wrong with one of these.

The Best We Could Do,by Thi Bui. This gorgeous graphic novel is a deeply personal memoir that explores what it means to be a parent and a refugee. The author’s family fled Vietnam in 1978. After giving birth to her own child, she decides to learn more about her parents’ experiences growing up in a country torn apart by foreign occupiers.

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond. If you want a good understanding of how the issues that cause poverty are intertwined, you should read this book about the eviction crisis in Milwaukee. Desmond has written a brilliant portrait of Americans living in poverty. He gave me a better sense of what it is like to be poor in this country than anything else I have read.

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens, by Eddie Izzard. Izzard’s personal story is fascinating: he survived a difficult childhood and worked relentlessly to overcome his lack of natural talent and become an international star. If you’re a huge fan of him like I am, you’ll love this book. His written voice is very similar to his stage voice, and I found myself laughing out loud several times while reading it.

The Sympathizer,by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Most of the books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen about the Vietnam War focused on the American perspective. Nguyen’s award-winning novel offers much-needed insight into what it was like to be Vietnamese and caught between both sides. Despite how dark it is, The Sympathizer is a gripping story about a double agent and the trouble he gets himself into.

Energy and Civilization: A History, by Vaclav Smil. Smil is one of my favorite authors, and this is his masterpiece. He lays out how our need for energy has shaped human history—from the era of donkey-powered mills to today’s quest for renewable energy. It’s not the easiest book to read, but at the end you’ll feel smarter and better informed about how energy innovation alters the course of civilizations.

Summer is a great time to escape: to the beach, to the mountains, or to the world of a great book. This year, I found myself drawn even more than usual to books that took me outside (and I don’t mean the great outdoors). The books on this year’s summer reading list pushed me out of my own experiences, and I learned some things that shed new light on how our experiences shape us and where humanity might be headed.

Some of these books helped me better understand what it’s like to grow up outside the mainstream: as a child of mixed race in apartheid South Africa, as a young man trying to escape his impoverished life in rural Appalachia, or as the son of a peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia. I hope you’ll find that others make you think deeper about what it means to truly connect with other people and to have purpose in your life. And all of them will transport you somewhere else—whether you’re sitting on a beach towel or on your own couch.

Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah. As a longtime fan of The Daily Show, I loved reading this memoir about how its host honed his outsider approach to comedy over a lifetime of never quite fitting in. Born to a black South African mother and a white Swiss father in apartheid South Africa, he entered the world as a biracial child in a country where mixed race relationships were forbidden. Much of Noah’s story of growing up in South Africa is tragic. Yet, as anyone who watches his nightly monologues knows, his moving stories will often leave you laughing.

The Heart, by Maylis de Kerangal. While you’ll find this book in the fiction section at your local bookstore, what de Kerangal has done here in this exploration of grief is closer to poetry than anything else. At its most basic level, she tells the story of a heart transplant: a young man is killed in an accident, and his parents decide to donate his heart. But the plot is secondary to the strength of its words and characters. The book uses beautiful language to connect you deeply with people who may be in the story for only a few minutes. For example, de Kerangal goes on for pages about the girlfriend of the surgeon who does the transplant even though you never meet that character. I’m glad Melinda recommended this book to me, and I recently passed it along to a friend who, like me, sticks mostly with nonfiction. 

Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance. The disadvantaged world of poor white Appalachia described in this terrific, heartbreaking book is one that I know only vicariously. Vance was raised largely by his loving but volatile grandparents, who stepped in after his father abandoned him and his mother showed little interest in parenting her son. Against all odds, he survived his chaotic, impoverished childhood only to land at Yale Law School. While the book offers insights into some of the complex cultural and family issues behind poverty, the real magic lies in the story itself and Vance’s bravery in telling it.

Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari. I recommended Harari’s previous book Sapiens in last summer’s reading list, and this provocative follow-up is just as challenging, readable, and thought-provoking. Homo Deus argues that the principles that have organized society will undergo a huge shift in the 21st century, with major consequences for life as we know it. So far, the things that have shaped society—what we measure ourselves by—have been either religious rules about how to live a good life, or more earthly goals like getting rid of sickness, hunger, and war. What would the world be like if we actually achieved those things? I don’t agree with everything Harari has to say, but he has written a smart look at what may be ahead for humanity.

A Full Life, by Jimmy Carter. Even though the former President has already written more than two dozen books, he somehow managed to save some great anecdotes for this quick, condensed tour of his fascinating life. I loved reading about Carter’s improbable rise to the world’s highest office. The book will help you understand how growing up in rural Georgia in a house without running water, electricity, or insulation shaped—for better and for worse—his time in the White House. Although most of the stories come from previous decades, A Full Life feels timely in an era when the public’s confidence in national political figures and institutions is low.

Never before have I felt so empowered to learn as I do today. When I was young, there were few options to learn on my own. My parents had a set of World Book Encyclopedias, which I read through in alphabetical order. But there were no online courses, video lectures, or podcasts to introduce me to new ideas and thinkers as we have today.

Still, reading books is my favorite way to learn about a new topic. I’ve been reading about a book a week on average since I was a kid. Even when my schedule is out of control, I carve out a lot of time for reading.

If you’re looking for a book to enjoy over the holidays, here are some of my favorites from this year. They cover an eclectic mix of topics—from tennis to tennis shoes, genomics to great leadership. They’re all very well written, and they all dropped me down a rabbit hole of unexpected insights and pleasures.

String Theory, by David Foster Wallace. This book has nothing to do with physics, but its title will make you look super smart if you’re reading it on a train or plane. String Theory is a collection of five of Wallace’s best essays on tennis, a sport I gave up in my Microsoft days and am once again pursuing with a passion. You don’t have to play or even watch tennis to love this book. The late author wielded a pen as skillfully as Roger Federer wields a tennis racket. Here, as in his other brilliant works, Wallace found mind-blowing ways of bending language like a metal spoon.

Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight. This memoir, by the co-founder of Nike, is a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like: messy, precarious, and riddled with mistakes. I’ve met Knight a few times over the years. He’s super nice, but he’s also quiet and difficult to get to know. Here Knight opens up in a way few CEOs are willing to do. I don’t think Knight sets out to teach the reader anything. Instead, he accomplishes something better. He tells his story as honestly as he can. It’s an amazing tale.

The Gene, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Doctors are deemed a “triple threat” when they take care of patients, teach medical students, and conduct research. Mukherjee, who does all of these things at Columbia University, is a “quadruple threat,” because he’s also a Pulitzer Prize– winning author. In his latest book, Mukherjee guides us through the past, present, and future of genome science, with a special focus on huge ethical questions that the latest and greatest genome technologies provoke. Mukherjee wrote this book for a lay audience, because he knows that the new genome technologies are at the cusp of affecting us all in profound ways.

The Myth of the Strong Leader, by Archie Brown. This year’s fierce election battle prompted me to pick up this 2014 book, by an Oxford University scholar who has studied political leadership—good, bad, and ugly—for more than 50 years. Brown shows that the leaders who make the biggest contributions to history and humanity generally are not the ones we perceive to be “strong leaders.” Instead, they tend to be the ones who collaborate, delegate, and negotiate—and recognize that no one person can or should have all the answers. Brown could not have predicted how resonant his book would become in 2016.

Honorable mention: The Grid, by Gretchen Bakke. This book, about our aging electrical grid, fits in one of my favorite genres: “Books About Mundane Stuff That Are Actually Fascinating.” Part of the reason I find this topic fascinating is because my first job, in high school, was writing software for the entity that controls the power grid in the Northwest. But even if you have never given a moment’s thought to how electricity reaches your outlets, I think this book would convince you that the electrical grid is one of the greatest engineering wonders of the modern world. I think you would also come to see why modernizing the grid is so complex and so critical for building our clean-energy future. 

Here in Seattle, summer is a gift you earn by gutting out nine months of rain and gloom. The skies are clear, there’s hardly any humidity, and the nights are cool. Best of all, you sometimes get the chance to sit outside reading a great book.

This summer, my recommended reading list has a good dose of books with science and math at their core. But there’s no science or math to my selection process. The following five books are simply ones that I loved, made me think in new ways, and kept me up reading long past when I should have gone to sleep. As a result, this is an eclectic list—from an 800-page science fiction novel by a local legend to a 200-page nonfiction book on how Japan can get its economic mojo back. I hope you find at least one book here that inspires you to go off the beaten path when you get some time to yourself this summer.

Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson. I hadn’t read any science fiction for a decade when a friend recommended this novel. I’m glad she did. The plot gets going in the first sentence, when the moon blows up. People figure out that in two years a cataclysmic meteor shower will wipe out all life on Earth, so the world unites on a plan to keep humanity going by launching as many spacecraft as possible into orbit. You might lose patience with all the information you’ll get about space flight—Stephenson, who lives in Seattle, has clearly done his research—but I loved the technical details. Seveneves inspired me to rekindle my sci-fi habit.

How Not to be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg. Ellenberg, a mathematician and writer, explains how math plays into our daily lives without our even knowing it. Each chapter starts with a subject that seems fairly straightforward—electoral politics, say, or the Massachusetts lottery—and then uses it as a jumping-off point to talk about the math involved. In some places the math gets quite complicated, but he always wraps things up by making sure you’re still with him. The book’s larger point is that, as Ellenberg writes, “to do mathematics is to be, at once, touched by fire and bound by reason”—and that there are ways in which we’re all doing math, all the time.

The Vital Question, by Nick Lane. Nick is one of those original thinkers who makes you say: More people should know about this guy’s work. He is trying to right a scientific wrong by getting people to fully appreciate the role that energy plays in all living things. He argues that we can only understand how life began, and how living things got so complex, by understanding how energy works. It’s not just theoretical; mitochondria (the power plants in our cells) could play a role in fighting cancer and malnutrition. Even if the details of Nick’s work turn out to be wrong, I suspect his focus on energy will be seen as an important contribution to our understanding of where we come from.

The Power to Compete, by Ryoichi Mikitani and Hiroshi Mikitani. I have a soft spot for Japan that dates back three decades or so, when I first traveled there for Microsoft. Today, of course, Japan is intensely interesting to anyone who follows global economics. Why were its companies—the juggernauts of the 1980s—eclipsed by competitors in South Korea and China? And can they come back? Those questions are at the heart of this series of dialogues between Ryoichi, an economist who died in 2013, and his son Hiroshi, founder of the Internet company Rakuten. Although I don’t agree with everything in Hiroshi’s program, I think he has a number of good ideas. The Power to Compete is a smart look at the future of a fascinating country.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Noah Yuval Harari. Both Melinda and I read this one, and it has sparked lots of great conversations at our dinner table. Harari takes on a daunting challenge: to tell the entire history of the human race in just 400 pages. He also writes about our species today and how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change us in the future. Although I found things to disagree with—especially Harari’s claim that humans were better off before we started farming—I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species.

I just looked over the list of books I read this year, and I noticed a pattern. A lot of them touch on a theme that I would call “how things work.” Some explain something about the physical world, like how steel and glass are used, or what it takes to get rid of deadly diseases. Others offer deep insights into human beings: our strengths and flaws, our capacity for lifelong growth, or the things we value. I didn’t set out to explore these themes intentionally, though in retrospect it make a lot of sense since the main reason I read is to learn.

Below the video are short reviews of some of the best books I read in 2015, in no particular order, with links to longer write-ups. As usual with my year-end lists (see 2013 and 2014), not all the books came out this year. I hope you find something to your liking. And feel free to share your own favorites in the comments section below.

The Road to Character, by David Brooks. The insightful New York Times columnist examines the contrasting values that motivate all of us. He argues that American society does a good job of cultivating the “résumé virtues” (the traits that lead to external success) but not our “eulogy virtues” (the traits that lead to internal peace of mind). Brooks profiles various historical figures who were paragons of character. I thought his portrait of World War II General George Marshall was especially enlightening. Even if the distinction between the two types of virtues is not always crystal clear, The Road to Character gave me a lot to think about. It is a thought-provoking look at what it means to live life well.

Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, by Randall Munroe. The brain behind XKCD explains various subjects—from how smartphones work to what the U.S. Constitution says—using only the 1,000 most common words in the English language and blueprint-style diagrams. It is a brilliant concept, because if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t really understand it. Munroe, who worked on robotics at NASA, is an ideal person to take it on. The book is filled with helpful explanations and drawings of everything from a dishwasher to a nuclear power plant. And Munroe’s jokes are laugh-out-loud funny. This is a wonderful guide for curious minds.

Being Nixon: A Man Divided, by Evan Thomas. Former U.S. president Richard Nixon is often portrayed as little more than a crook and a war monger. So it was refreshing to see a more balanced account in Being Nixon, by author and journalist Evan Thomas. I wouldn’t call it a sympathetic portrait—in many ways, Nixon was a deeply unsympathetic person—but it is an empathetic one. Rather than just focusing on Nixon’s presidency, Thomas takes a cradle-to-the-grave approach and gives you sharp insights into the inner workings of a brilliant, flawed, and conflicted man.

Sustainable Materials With Both Eyes Open, by Julian M. Allwood, Jonathan M. Cullen, et al. How much can we reduce carbon emissions that come from making and using stuff? Quite a bit, according to the University of Cambridge team behind this book. They look closely at the materials that humans use most, with particular emphasis on steel and aluminum, and show how we could cut emissions by up to 50 percent without asking people to make big sacrifices. Although the topic can be dry as a desert, the authors keep it light with lots of colorful illustrations and clever analogies without sacrificing clarity or rigor. I learned a lot from this thoughtful look at a critical topic. (You can download it free on the authors’ site.)

Eradication: Ridding the World of Diseases Forever?, by Nancy Leys Stepan. Stepan’s history of eradication efforts gives you a good sense of how involved the work can get, how many different kinds of approaches have been tried without success, and how much we’ve learned from our failures. She writes in a fairly academic style that may make it hard for non-experts to get to her valuable arguments, but it’s worth the effort. You come away from it with a clearer sense of how we can use the lessons of the past to guide future efforts to save lives.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck. This book first came to my attention a few years ago during an invention session on education with my friend Nathan Myrhvold. It’s been an important influence on the foundation’s education work. Through clever research studies and engaging writing, Dweck illuminates how our beliefs about our capabilities exert tremendous influence on how we learn and which paths we take in life. The value of this book extends way beyond the world of education. It’s just as relevant for businesspeople who want to cultivate talent and for parents who want to raise their kids to thrive on challenge.

Honorable mention: I read one book this year that definitely deserves a spot on this list, but I haven’t had time to give it the full write-up it deserves. The Vital Question, by Nick Lane, is an amazing inquiry into the origins of life. I loved it so much that I immediately bought all of Lane’s other books. And I jumped at the chance to meet Lane and talk to him about his research last September, when both of us were in New York City. I’ll post more about his fascinating work when I get the chance.

Last year, there was only one book on my summer reading list that you could reasonably call a beach read. This year I tried to pick a few more things that are on the lighter side. Each of these books made me think or laugh or, in some cases, do both. I hope you find something to your liking here. And if it’s not summer where you live, this list will still be here six months from now…

Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh. The book, based on Brosh’s wildly popular website, consists of brief vignettes and comic drawings about her young life. The adventures she recounts are mostly inside her head, where we hear and see the kind of inner thoughts most of us are too timid to let out in public. You will rip through it in three hours, tops. But you’ll wish it went on longer, because it’s funny and smart as hell. I must have interrupted Melinda a dozen times to read to her passages that made me laugh out loud.

The Magic of Reality, by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford, has a gift for making science enjoyable. This book is as accessible as the TV series Cosmos is for younger audiences—and as relevant for older audiences. It’s an engaging, well-illustrated science textbook offering compelling answers to big questions, like “how did the universe form?” and “what causes earthquakes?” It’s also a plea for readers of all ages to approach mysteries with rigor and curiosity. Dawkins’s antagonistic (and, to me, overzealous) view of religion has earned him a lot of angry critics, but I consider him to be one of the great scientific writer/explainers of all time.

What If?, by Randall Munroe. The subtitle of the book is “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” and that’s exactly what it is. People write Munroe with questions that range over all fields of science: physics, chemistry, biology. Questions like, “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?” (The answer, it turns out, is “high enough that it would disintegrate before it hit the ground.”) Munroe’s explanations are funny, but the science underpinning his answers is very accurate. It’s an entertaining read, and you’ll also learn a bit about things like ballistics, DNA, the oceans, the atmosphere, and lightning along the way.

XKCD, by Randall Munroe. A collection of posts from Munroe’s blog XKCD, which is made up of cartoons he draws making fun of things—mostly scientists and computers, but lots of other things too. There’s one about scientists holding a press conference to reveal their discovery that life is arsenic-based. They research press conferences and find out that sometimes it’s good to serve food that’s related to the subject of the conference. The last panel is all the reporters dead on the floor because they ate arsenic. It’s that kind of humor, which not everybody loves, but I do.

On Immunity, by Eula Biss. When I stumbled across this book on the Internet, I thought it might be a worthwhile read. I had no idea what a pleasure reading it would be. Biss, an essayist and university lecturer, examines what lies behind people’s fears of vaccinating their children. Like many of us, she concludes that vaccines are safe, effective, and almost miraculous tools for protecting children against needless suffering. But she is not out to demonize anyone who holds opposing views. This is a thoughtful and beautifully written book about a very important topic.

How to Lie With Statistics, by Darrell Huff. I picked up this short, easy-to-read book after seeing it on a Wall Street Journal list of good books for investors. I enjoyed it so much that it was one of a handful of books I recommended to everyone at TED this year. It was first published in 1954, but aside from a few anachronistic examples (it has been a long time since bread cost 5 cents a loaf in the United States), it doesn’t feel dated. One chapter shows you how visuals can be used to exaggerate trends and give distorted comparisons—a timely reminder, given how often infographics show up in your Facebook and Twitter feeds these days. A useful introduction to the use of statistics, and a helpful refresher for anyone who is already well versed in it.

Should We Eat Meat?, by Vaclav Smil. The richer the world gets, the more meat it eats. And the more meat it eats, the bigger the threat to the planet. How do we square this circle? Vaclav Smil takes his usual clear-eyed view of the whole landscape, from meat’s role in human evolution to hard questions about animal cruelty. While it would be great if people wanted to eat less meat, I don’t think we can expect large numbers of people to make drastic reductions. I’m betting on innovation, including higher agricultural productivity and the development of meat substitutes, to help the world meet its need for meat. A timely book, though probably the least beach-friendly one on this list.

I didn’t really plan it this way. But as I look at the list of the best books I read this year, I see how a number of them touch on economics and business. That’s fitting, in a year when Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century put a big spotlight on inequality. In addition, with the Asian economies so much in the news, I wanted to read How Asia Works, which promised to explain why some of the continent’s countries grew so fast while others languished. And I got to brush up on an old favorite, the best business book I’ve ever read.

Here are short reviews of those three, plus two other terrific books I read this year. Not all of these came out in 2014—sometimes I fall behind and don’t get to a book until well after it’s been published. Other times I’m able to get ahead of the game: The Rosie Effect won’t be published in the United States until December 31, but the author was nice enough to send Melinda and me advance copies before he stopped by the office in September.

I’d encourage you to take a look at any of these that sound interesting. And feel free to share your favorites from 2014 in the comments section below.

Business Adventures, by John Brooks. Shortly after we met, Warren Buffett loaned me this collection of New Yorker business articles from the 1950s and 1960s. I loved them as much as he did. Brooks’s insights about business have aged beautifully, and they are as true today as ever. I still go back to this book from time to time, and this year I had a chance to re-read the chapter on Xerox (which you can download free). Business Adventures is a neglected classic, and it’s still my favorite business book ever.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty. Capital sparked a fantastic global discussion this year about inequality. Piketty kindly spent an hour discussing his work with me before I finished my review. As I told him, although I have concerns about some of his secondary points and policy prescriptions, I agree with his most important conclusions: inequality is a growing problem and that governments should play a role in reducing it. I admire his work and hope it draws in more smart people to study the causes of, and cures for, inequality.

How Asia Works, by Joe Studwell. Studwell produces compelling answers to two of the greatest questions in development economics: How did countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China achieve sustained, high growth? And why have so few other countries managed to do so? His answers come in the form of a simple—and yet hard to execute—formula: (1) create conditions for small farmers to thrive, (2) use the proceeds from agricultural surpluses to build a manufacturing base focused on exports, and (3) nurture both these sectors with financial institutions closely controlled by the government. The agriculture section of the book was particularly insightful. It provided ample food for thought for me as well as the whole Agriculture team at our foundation. And it left us thinking about whether parts of the Asian model can apply in Africa.

The Rosie Effect, by Graeme Simsion. The hilarious follow-up to The Rosie Project, one of the best novels I’ve read in ages. There’s no sophomore slump here. Simsion brings back some of the best characters and gags from the first novel while also bringing in enough new elements to keep it fresh. It’s a funny novel that also made me think about relationships: what makes them work and how we have to keep investing time and energy to make them better. A sweet, entertaining, and thought-provoking book.

Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization, by Vaclav Smil. One of Smil’s books makes my list of favorites pretty much every year. This time it’s his look at the world’s use of materials, from silicon to wood to plastic and cement. If anyone tries to tell you we’re using fewer materials, send him this book. With his usual skepticism and his love of data, Smil shows how our ability to make things with less material—say, soda cans that need less aluminum—makes them cheaper, which actually encourages more production. We’re using more stuff than ever. 

If you’re looking for something to read this summer, I’d recommend any of the books below. I read them all earlier this year and think each one is terrific. Only one, The Rosie Project, qualifies as a typical beach read. But all six are deeply informative and beautifully written.

Business Adventures, by John Brooks. Warren Buffett recommended this book to me back in 1991, and it’s still the best business book I’ve ever read. Even though Brooks wrote more than four decades ago, he offers sharp insights into timeless fundamentals of business, like the challenge of building a large organization, hiring people with the right skills, and listening to customers’ feedback. He is also a masterful storyteller, peppering his articles with compelling portraits of everyone from General Electric executives to the founder of Piggly Wiggly groceries. His article on the fate of the Ford Motor Company’s Edsel is a classic. Business Adventures is out of print in hardcover and paperback, but you can now buy it in e-book form. And you can download chapter 5, “Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox,” free. I wish all business writing were half as good.

Stress Test, by Timothy F. Geithner. The central irony of Stress TestStress Test is that a guy who was accused of being a lousy communicator as U.S. Treasury Secretary has penned a book that is such a good read. Geithner paints a compelling human portrait of what it was like to be fighting a global financial meltdown while at the same time fighting critics inside and outside the Administration as well as his own severe guilt over his near-total absence from his family. The politics of fighting financial crises will always be ugly. But it helps if the public knows a little more about the subject—what’s at stake, what the options are, what has worked in similar situations—so that the loud talkers resonate a bit less and the knowledgeable ones a bit more. If continues to attract lay readers, it could make at least a modest difference the next time around.

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I read a lot about Teddy Roosevelt last year, around the time Melinda and I took our kids to the Panama Canal. He was instrumental in getting the canal built, and I’d assumed it was the highlight of his career. But it wasn’t. It’s a testament to the breadth and depth of Roosevelt’s accomplishments that the canal warrants only a handful of mentions in this biography. There’s just too much other fascinating material competing for space, from Roosevelt’s relationship with the press and his friendship with William Howard Taft (who was brilliant in his own right) to his efforts to fight corruption and reform the political system.

I’m especially interested in the central question that Goodwin raises: How does social change happen? Can it be driven by a single inspirational leader, or do other factors have to lay the groundwork first? Sometimes a single leader can make a big difference: In the field of global health, Jim Grant almost singlehandedly created a global constituency for children, sparking a movement to double vaccination rates and save millions of lives. But Roosevelt’s case was different. Although he tried to push through a number of political reforms earlier in his career, he wasn’t really successful until journalists at McClure’s and other publications had rallied public support for change.

I loved Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and highly recommend this one too.

The Rosie Project: A Novel, by Graeme Simsion. Melinda picked up this novel earlier this year, and she loved it so much that she kept stopping to read passages to me. I started it myself at 11 p.m. one Saturday and stayed up with it until 3 the next morning. Anyone who occasionally gets overly logical will identify with the hero, a genetics professor with Asperger’s Syndrome who goes looking for a wife. (Melinda thought I would appreciate the parts where he’s a little too obsessed with optimizing his schedule. She was right.) It’s a funny and profound book about being comfortable with who you are and what you’re good at. I’m sending copies to several friends and hope to re-read it later this year. It is one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve read in a long time.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Climate change is a big problem—one of the biggest we’ll face this century—but it’s not the only environmental concern on the horizon. Humans are putting down massive amounts of pavement, moving species around the planet, over-fishing and acidifying the oceans, changing the chemical composition of rivers, and more. Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction events in the Earth’s history (think of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs), and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human activity is leading to the sixth. Unlike a lot of people who write about the environment, Kolbert doesn’t resort to hype. She just lays out the facts and wraps them in memorable anecdotes. It’s a sobering but engaging and informative read.

Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve Our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System, by Ezekiel J. Emanuel. One of the architects of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) makes the case for why the U.S. health care system needed reform and how Obamacare sets out to fix the problems. Although he was deeply involved in its creation, Emanuel is good about making it clear when he’s educating you about the history of health care and when he’s advocating for his ideas. He calls out a few things he disagreed with in Obamacare, like the creation of a separate health-insurance exchange for small businesses. And unlike a lot of experts, he’s willing to make predictions about how health care will change in the coming years. Some day we’ll be able to look back and see whether he was right. The facts and history that Emanuel lays out would be useful to anyone involved in the debate over health care, no matter what their point of view is.

I read a lot, but I don’t always choose what’s on the bestseller list. Many of the books I read this year actually came out years ago. That’s why this post isn’t called the Best Books of 2013.

You may notice that there aren’t any novels on my list this year. It’s not that I don’t enjoy fiction. I’ve read The Catcher in the Rye a bunch of times—it’s one of my favorite books ever (and I enjoyed Salinger, the documentary that came out this year). I did read Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, which was entertaining though it didn’t have as much science fiction as I expected.

But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how the world works. And reading is how I learn best.

Each of the books on the list below taught me something I didn’t know. How shipping containers helped cut the cost of moving goods between Asia and North America by roughly half. How refined tools for measurement laid the groundwork for the invention of the steam engine. How we’re dangerously overfishing cod, tuna, and other species. 

More generally, these books tell amazing stories of human ingenuity. It is this ingenuity that helps explain why the world keeps getting better, and why at the end of each year I look forward to the next one with hope and optimism.

Here are my picks, in no particular order, along with a link to my full review if I wrote one:

The Box ,by Marc Levinson. You might think you don’t want to read a whole book about shipping containers. And Levinson is pretty self-aware about what an unusual topic he chose. But he makes a good case that the move to containerized shipping had an enormous impact on the global economy and changed the way the world does business. And he turns it into a very readable narrative. I won’t look at a cargo ship in quite the same way again.

The Most Powerful Idea in the World,by William Rosen. A bit like The Box, except it’s about steam engines. Rosen weaves together the clever characters, incremental innovations, and historical context behind this invention. I’d wanted to know more about steam engines since the summer of 2009, when my son and I spent a lot of time hanging out at the Science Museum in London.

Harvesting the Biosphere, by Vaclav Smil. There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil. Here he gives as clear and as numeric a picture as is possible of how humans have altered the biosphere. The book is a bit dry and I had to look up a number of terms that were unfamiliar to me, but it tells a critical story if you care about the impact we’re having on the planet.

The World Until Yesterday,by Jared Diamond. It’s not as good as Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. But then, few books are. Diamond finds fascinating anecdotes about what life is like for hunter-gatherers and asks which ones might apply to our modern lifestyles. He doesn’t make some grand pronouncement or romanticize tribal life. He just wants to find the best practices and share them.

Poor Numbers, by Morten Jerven. Jerven, an economist, spent four years digging into how African nations get their statistics and the challenges they face in turning them into GDP estimates. He makes a strong case that a lot of GDP measurements we thought were accurate are far from it. But as I argue in my longer review, that doesn’t mean we know nothing about what works in development.

Why Does College Cost So Much?, by Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman. The title is a question that seems to get more attention every year. The authors are good about not pointing fingers but instead talking about how America’s labor market affects the cost of college. My view is that as long as there’s a scarcity of college graduates, a college degree will be quite valuable. So people will pay more to get one.  And if they will pay more, then colleges and universities—whose labor is provided mostly by people who paid a lot for their own degrees—can ask for more. Until you get an excess supply of graduates, then you don’t really get any price competition.

What’s the answer? Archibald and Feldman lay out a number of policies that could help. I also think technology can help control costs by improving distance learning. Colleges and universities can also do a lot to root out inefficiencies and duplication. (How many physics courses should be taught in, say, Chicago? Could some be consolidated?) This book is a useful introduction to a complex problem.

The Bet, by Paul Sabin. Sabin chronicles the public debate about whether the world is headed for an environmental catastrophe. He centers the story on Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, who wagered $1,000 on whether human welfare would improve or get worse over time. Without ridiculing either proponent, Sabin shows how their extreme views contributed to the polarized debate over climate change and other issues that continues today.

Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading. Last year I shared my summer reading list, and I thought I’d do it again this year. Here are a few of the books I’m planning to read, along with one recommendation of a book I’ve already finished.

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? 

By Jared Diamond
Viking Adult, 2012

It’s crazy that I haven’t read this one yet. Diamond’s best-known book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, had a profound effect on the way I think about history and why certain societies advance faster than others. In this new book, he draws on his personal experiences with cultures in the Pacific Islands to talk about what traditional societies can teach us about child rearing, dispute resolution, and other areas. Even if I disagree with some of what he says, I know it will be interesting and well worth the read.

 In fact, I’d like to invite you to read it along with me. I’ll be posting my review of The World Until Yesterday in about two weeks. If you’re interested, you can read it at the same time and post your comments.

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

by Marc Levinson
Princeton University Press, 2008

I’ve read a fair amount already about how advances in engines for jets and ships made globalization possible. And Melinda and I recently took our kids on a trip to see the Panama Canal, because we’re so curious about how it works and we wanted to see it in action.  I’m hoping this book, which is about how shipping containers are another key advance that underwrites globalization, will add another dimension to the story for me.

However Long the Night: Molly Melching's Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls

by Aimee Molloy
HarperOne, 2013

Melinda read this book a while ago and wrote a great review of it on the foundation’s site. Molly Melching started a group called Tostan, which initially set out to end the practice of female genital cutting. Today they have expanded to many different areas, all related to expanding opportunities for women and girls in Africa. I’m sure it will be an enlightening read.

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character 

by Paul Tough
Mariner Books, 2013

Tough argues that non-cognitive qualities like perseverance and optimism are what make kids successful. He looks in particular at the research on improving college graduation rates for low-income and minority students, which is an issue our foundation does a lot of work on, so I’m curious to see what he has to say.

Japan's Dietary Transition and Its Impacts (Food, Health, and the Environment)

by Vaclav Smil and Kazuhiko Kobayashi
MIT Press, 2012

Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing

by Vaclav Smil 
MIT Press, 2013

If you’re been reading this site for long, you know that Smil is one of my favorite authors. The term “polymath” was made for people like him. He writes thoughtful, thorough books on energy, innovation, agriculture, history, diet, and a lot more. I’m trying to read everything he writes, but he publishes so quickly that I can’t keep up. While his style can be a little dry and isn’t for everyone, I learn more by reading Vaclav Smil than just about anyone else.

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time)

by Claude Steele
Norton & Company, 2011

I’ve actually read this one already, but I’m including it here as a recommendation. I learned a lot about different forms of discrimination that affect people’s performance but are very hard to detect. It helped me understand why even some very intelligent people don’t do as well as you might expect when they get to college. It also breaks down a lot of myths, like the idea that minorities will prosper if we can just do away with discrimination in hiring. Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up. And Steele offers a few ideas about how to tackle the problem. It’s a very good read.

Patriot and Assassin 

by Robert Cook
Royal Wulff Publishing, 2013

A friend of mine gave me this novel and insisted that I read it. It’s a thriller about terrorists plotting an attack on U.S. soil. I don’t generally read a lot of fiction. I think The Hunger Games was the last novel I read. I bet this one will involve less archery.

The holidays in December were a great time to relax, spend time with family and friends, and catch up on some reading. I had a number of books that I’d been wanting to get to and that I had a chance to read last month. They included a couple of books that I thought were pretty important and that I want to write longer reviews of soon, but right now I’d like to give you some brief reactions to them and some other books you might want to consider reading in the new year.

Anyone interested in politics may be attracted to Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don't. Silver is the New York Times columnist who got a lot of attention last fall for predicting—accurately, as it turned out–the results of the U.S. presidential election. This book actually came out before the election, though, and it’s about predictions in many domains besides politics. Silver knows a lot about baseball, and I especially liked his explanation of hold’em poker. A few pages – where he talks about how early computers supposedly made everything less efficient—are utter nonsense. I wish he had gone into more depth on some things, like why it is that voters are increasingly polarized. I liked the book, though I wish he’d gone deeper on a number of topics. 

I have mixed feelings about The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future by Joseph E. Stiglitz. Stiglitz’s contributions are important in that he really does a good job of articulating the issues of inequality and the economic factors that underlie it. He raises important questions about whether it’s getting harder for people in the U.S. to move up the economic ladder. He makes a pretty rational case for keeping things like the estate tax and for increasing taxes as part of how you close the budget deficit. On these ideas, I found a lot of common ground with Stiglitz. But he seems to think that government is totally benign, and he is very skeptical of the private sector. The private sector’s obligations and its relative contributions to the economy are an interesting topic for discussion. But Stiglitz seems to demonize the category as a whole.  I wonder if many of his policy solutions would make things worse by incentivizing business to put even more money and effort into currying favor with Washington.

I read two books that raise big, interesting questions about social change and technological progress. I’m planning to write longer reviews of each of these books, but let me flag them for you now.

One is Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.The topic of this book is why some countries have prospered and created great living conditions for their citizens while others have not. This is an important topic, which I care a lot about. The book makes an appealing argument that economic development depends on political institutions that protect individual rights. It is well written and very easy to read with lots of interesting historical stories about different countries.  But it is a major disappointment. Its analysis is vague and simplistic. I’ll explain more in a longer review.

I just finished reading The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention by William Rosen. It focuses on the Industrial Revolution basically from the Newcomen atmospheric engine in 1712 to the Stephen Rocket Locomotive in 1850. It does a great job of explaining how thousands of innovations were driven during this period by many elements coming together: increased literacy, patents, societies, scientist/tinkerers, the cotton industry, trade/shipping, measurement, etc. It is a great book although its helps to have an interest in how steam engines actually work since it chronicles how they changed over time in some depth. This book is very worthwhile, and I’ll have more to say about it also in a longer review.

I already posted a full review of Tap Dancing to Work, a collection of writings about Warren Buffett put together by his friend Carol J. Loomis. I can’t resist an opportunity to recommend this book again. It's very, very good.  The pieces go back more than 40 years some of them, and it’s very interesting to see how Warren framed things years ago and how he’s dealt with certain challenges since. You get to see how consistent Warren’s framework has been, how he has always looked at the world in terms of integrity and financial valuation. There are some speeches in here that offer great insights into how Warren evaluates stock markets over time and how to assess the margin of safety available in investments at any point in time. I thought the book was super good.

I read some amazing books this year. Every one of these books changed my worldview, and I highly recommend them if you’re looking for inspiring reading. Read my book reviews to learn more.

Ten Books that Made Me Think

1. The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker
2. Deng Xiaoping by Ezra Vogel
3. The Quest by Daniel Yergin
4. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
5. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
6. One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World? by Gordon Conway
7. A World-Class Education by Vivien Stewart
8. Academically Adrift by Richard Arum & Joshipa Roksa
9. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff
10. The City that Became Safe: New York’s Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control by Franklin Zimring

One of the shorter, fun books I read this summer is A Nation of Wusses: How America’s Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great. It’s by Ed Rendell, who was district attorney, mayor of Philadelphia and then two-term governor of Pennsylvania. If you’ve heard him speak or seen him on TV, you know he’s a colorful and outspoken observer of political life in the U.S.  No surprise, then, that this book is colorful too,with lots of great stories. His theme is that leaders shouldn’t just tell people what they want to hear.  But because politics has become so intensely partisan, too often our political leaders seem to be afraid to tell us the truth and to actually lead us in making the hard choices we need to face up to, on issues like education reform and the federal deficit. As a mayor and governor, Rendell faced up to some very messed-up budget situations and made some smart trade-offs. I thought his point of view was really refreshing.  He makes a good point about how politics has changed in ways that make it harder for leaders to emerge and to truly lead.

Eli Broad is definitely not a wuss. I enjoyed his succinct memoir, The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking. Broad has had huge success in business, as the leader of KB Home and then SunAmerica. Now retired, he’s become an important philanthropist in areas including education,which is how I’ve gotten to know him. He attributes a lot of his success to his willingness to defy convention. For example, he admits he’s an impatient guy who hates for people to waste his time, so he won’t go to any event for more than three hours. He believes you may have to be “unreasonable” sometimes to accomplish your goals. He’s certainly accomplished a lot.

Of the five books I finished over vacation, the one that impressed me the most – and that is probably of broadest interest – is Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by science writer Joshua Foer. This is an absolutely phenomenal book that looks at memory and techniques for dramatically improving memory. Foer actually mastered these techniques, which led him to the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. His book gives fascinating insights into how the mind works. (I have more to say in my separate review of Moonwalking with Einstein.)

The most troubling reading I did on vacation was Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, by two sociologists, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, who examine the evidence on what college students actually learn. I was surprised how little data there is on this important question. Even more disturbing, the data cited by the authors indicates that students may not learn very much. In their first two years of college, many U.S. college students advance very little in important skills like critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing. I was really surprised to read that. The data shows that students today spend much less time actually studying, and they take less rigorous courses, most of which don’t require them to do much writing, for example. And yet even so, many students do not complete their degrees. Graduation rates from U.S. colleges are much lower than in many other countries. What’s going on in higher educationis a topic I care a lot about, and I basically agree with the authors’ findings that we have a real problem. I plan to take a deeper dive into this topic with a full review of Academically Adrift, which I’ll post in a few weeks.

Much more upbeat is Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness, by James Baraz and Shoshana Alexander. I don’t read a lot of self-help or inspirational books, but even if you never read anything in this genre, this book is one you should try. It’s about enjoying your life, consciously picking the things that make life more enjoyable and purposefully thinking about them. It shows how to think about spirituality and purpose in your life. Baraz teaches a very popular course and has an online lecture series on this. Melinda and I actually went to one of his seminars. He’s a very nice guy, and Awakening Joy is very good.

Growing up, I always looked forward to summer vacations because it meant more time for reading. My dad thought it was kind of funny that I’d check out so many books that the librarians wouldn’t give me new ones until I returned some.

I guess that habit has stuck with me. When I go on vacation now, I take what is probably a ridiculous number of books along. (Some have been around the world several times without being opened but I will eventually read them.) Sometimes I can get in as much as a book a day.

One book I read recently that I’m absolutely nuts about is Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature. This one took more than a day to read because it’s over 700 pages, and it deals with one of the most complex issues in history—the history of violence. Pinker makes the case that over time, humans have become much less violent and more humane. This got me thinking about how we can achieve more positive outcomes in the world today through the work of our foundation.

Another great book I read recently was The Quest, by Daniel Yergin. For anyone interested in the dynamics shaping our energy future and all of the innovation around energy, it’s a fantastic book. In addition to my review of his book, I’ve also posted a response from the author to the follow-up questions I had about the important topics covered in his book.

I’ll be posting a review soon of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, a book by Ezra Vogel. It’s a biography of the former Chinese communist leader, who was well-known both for the brutal 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protestors and other oppressive tactics, and for the market reforms in the last quarter of the 21^st century that  transformed the country economically, socially, and politically.   It’s also a bit on the long side, but completely worthwhile.

Other books I read recently that I’d recommend include:

• The Cost of Hope by Amanda Bennett
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
• Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update by Donella Meadows
• Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler

Between family trips and some other travel I’ll be doing this summer, I probably have more reading time planned than I think I’ve had for a very long time, maybe ever since I started work.  Still, I’m probably being too optimistic about what I’ll be getting to, because I’m taking a ton of books with me.  I’ll share those on the site as I finish reading them. Two books that I’ve been reading recently and hope to finish soon are:

• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• The Man Who Stayed Behind which is another interesting book by Amanda Bennett. 

I also enjoy exchanging book recommendations and have asked several people I know to send me their own reading lists which I plan to share on the site. I hope you will share your own book recommendations in the commenting section below.