REDMOND, Wash.–Worried you might run into Bill Gates this summer at the beach and won’t have anything to talk about other than maybe some issues with Windows 10? Worry no more.
Gates has released a list of five books that he is recommending for your 2016 summer reading. The list?
1. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson.
Gates says he loved the technical details in this sci-fi novel. But also acknowledges, "You might lose patience with all the information you'll get about space flight." Set aside some beach time: the book is 880-pages long.
2. How Not to Be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg.
Apparently, Gates never really understood the whole point about summertime and vacations, because this is a book about math. Yes, math—which with all those zeroes and ones is what’s behind all those devices you carry. Like his first recommendation, this also comes with a caveat, with Gates noting, "In some places, the math gets quite complicated.” And what says light summer reading better than complicated math?
3. The Vital Question, by Nick Lane.
The full name of this book is “The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution and the Origins of a Complex Life.” The book seeks to explain all of the mysteries about how life evolved on Earth, including what the author says is a deep link between energy and genes.
4. The Power to Compete, by Ryoichi Mikitani and Hiroshi Mikitani.
No math or sci-fi here. Instead, this book is all about Japan and whether it can return to its former economic glories.
5. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Noah Yuval Harari.
Closing out the list, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” shows that Gates really takes his reading seriously. The book, from a renowned historian, is described as a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”