This Christmas season, billionaire Bill Gates is giving you a list of five novels to read while you’re ideally relaxing
Gates, an avid reader who reads at least 50 novels each year, publishes annual lists of the greatest books he’s read, as well as seasonal suggestions for holiday books and summer beach reads.
This year, the 67-year-old appears to be leaning toward nostalgia: Gates’ 2022 Christmas reading list, which was revealed on Monday on his blog, has a mix of current bestsellers and some of his all-time favorite novels.
This includes a 1960s sci-fi classic that sparked Gates’ boyhood connection with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, as well as a tennis book Gates first read in the 1970s — which he claims helped him finally learn not to stress about professional blunders.
As an added bonus, he claims that a copy of each book his picks has been deposited in 100 Little Free Libraries throughout the world.
This year, Gates has five novels on his Christmas reading list:
Robert Heinlein’s ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’
This 1961 science-fiction classic has a particular place in Gates’ heart.
“I met Paul [Allen] around [that] time, and we got to know each other by talking about science fiction,” Gates wrote of the late Microsoft co-founder. “I thought I had read a lot of it, but Paul well exceeded my expectations.”
“Stranger in a Strange Land,” Gates’ favorite sci-fi book from his childhood, is about a human raised on Mars by Martians. The young man travels to a futuristic Earth and struggles to comprehend human concepts such as religion and war.
“I love sci-fi that pushes your thinking about what’s possible in the future,” Gates wrote, noting that Heinlein’s book correctly predicted some aspects of the future at the time, including “hippie culture” and waterbeds.
“He also does the classic sci-fi thing of using an obviously fictional setting to ask profound questions about human nature,” Gates added.
‘Surrender’ by Bono
Gates termed U2 vocalist Bono’s autobiographical book, released last month, “the greatest biography by a rock musician I really know.”
The millionaire and the 62-year-old musician, whose real name is Paul Hewson, have known one other for almost a decade. They frequently collaborate on charitable endeavors, raising awareness and cash for shared causes such as climate change and global health.
Gates complimented the book for providing a behind-the-scenes look at how U2 crafted “some of their most memorable songs,” as well as what has kept Bono and his bandmates together for more than four decades.
“They share the same values. All four of them are passionate about fighting poverty and inequity in the world, and they’re also aligned on maintaining their integrity as artists,” Gates wrote.
‘Team of Rivals’ by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Gates wrote that he was “blown away” upon reading this 2005 non-fiction work by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
“Team of Rivals” is a critically acclaimed biography of Abraham Lincoln and the men who served in his first Cabinet, several of whom had previously opposed Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election.
The book highlights Lincoln’s ability to reconcile opposing viewpoints among his own advisors, and “has a lot of insights about Lincoln that leaders can learn from today,” Gates wrote.
“Lately I’ve been thinking about Goodwin’s book because it feels very relevant in 2022,” he added. “There are significant parallels between the current moment and the 1860s, when the nation was dealing with violent insurrection, difficult questions about race, and ideological divides between states and regions.”
‘The Inner Game of Tennis’ by Robert Gallwey
More than a book about how to improve your forehand, Gallwey’s 1974 work aims to be “a guide to the mental side of peak performance.”
Gates first read the book more than four decades ago, and has since read it multiple times, he wrote — adding that he still gifts it to friends today because “its profound advice applies to many other parts of life.”
Gallwey, a tennis coach, wrote about how a player’s state of mind could affect their performance on the court as much as their athletic ability. Gates said those insights have helped in his career, especially focusing on constructive criticism rather than getting hung up on mistakes.
“For most of us, it’s too easy to slip into self-criticism, which then inhibits our performance even more. We need to learn to learn from our mistakes without obsessing over them,” Gates wrote.
It’s a lesson that Gates has previously admitted he needed to be taught, noting that in Microsoft’s early days, his high standards for himself and employees often made him an intense boss.
In 2019, Gates expressed regret over the approach: “Some of it helped us be successful, but I’m sure some of it was over the top.”
‘Mendeleyev’s Dream’ by Paul Strathern
If you visit Gates’ office in Seattle, you’ll see a huge wall display filled with samples of each entry in the periodic table of elements.
The billionaire’s interest in the period table continues with “Mendeleyev’s Dream,” a 2000 history of chemistry written by an academic named Paul Strathern.
The name comes from Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev, who formulated the first version of the periodic table in 1869. It’s “the best book I’ve ever read on the periodic table,” Gates wrote.
“Aside from being a neat piece of art, the periodic table reminds me of how one discovery can lead to countless others,” he continued. “All the complexity of the universe comes from the properties on that chart. Because we understand atoms, we can make chips, and therefore we can make software, and therefore we can make AI. Everything goes back to the periodic table.”
