Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. News

Here’s what Bill Gates says should be on your summer reading list

Jenny McGrath
By

Now we know what books are on Bill Gates‘ nightstand, thanks to his summer reading list for 2020.

Gates posted his top five books, along with a few extras (about meditation, memory, and Mars), on his site GatesNotes. He also added some movies and TV shows he’s been enjoying, as well as the tidbit that he plays online bridge with tycoon Warren Buffett.

Recommended Videos

Here are Gates’ ideas for some good beach reads (though you’ll maybe have to sit in front of a tropical screensaver instead of visiting the real deal).

5 summer book recommendations

1. The Choice: Embrace the Impossible by Dr. Edith Eva Eger

Related

The New York Times called this 2017 book a “mind-blowing memoir.” The Auschwitz survivor became a therapist, and she wrote about how healing her patients helped her deal with her own trauma. “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,” Gates wrote.

2. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This 2004 novel (which later became a movie starring Tom Hanks, et al.) is a set of interwoven stories set in myriad times and places. By the time David Mitchell brings them all together, you can’t “bear the journey to end,” according to A. S. Byatt. “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,” Gates said.

3. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Bob Iger

This 2019 book from Bob Iger was part of his swan song as he retired as CEO of Disney. Now, he’s returned as the company weathers the pandemic. Gates calls it, “one of the best business books I’ve read in several years.”

4. The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

A lot of people are reading (or rereading) this 2004 nonfiction book from historian John M. Barry. At the time, the Kirkus review called it, a “majestic, spellbinding treatment of a mass killer.” Gates agrees: “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”

5. Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Two Nobel-winning economists wrote this 2019 book, which looks at trade, immigration, universal basic income, and automation. Big issues, but according to Gates, “Fortunately for us, they’re also very good at making economics accessible to the average person.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jenny McGrath
Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
How Intel and Microsoft are teaming up to take on Apple
An Intel Meteor Lake system-on-a-chip.

It seems like Apple might need to watch out, because Intel and Microsoft are coming for it after the latter two companies reportedly forged a close partnership during the development of Intel Lunar Lake chips. Lunar Lake refers to Intel's upcoming generation of mobile processors that are aimed specifically at the thin and light segment. While the specs are said to be fairly modest, some signs hint that Lunar Lake may have enough of an advantage to pose a threat to some of the best processors.

Today's round of Intel Lunar Lake leaks comes from Igor's Lab. The system-on-a-chip (SoC), pictured above, is Intel's low-power solution made for thin laptops that's said to be coming out later this year. Curiously, the chips weren't manufactured on Intel's own process, but on TSMC's N3B node. This is an interesting development because Intel typically sticks to its own fabs, and it even plans to sell its manufacturing services to rivals like AMD. This time, however, Intel opted for the N3B node for its compute tile.

Read more
How much does an AI supercomputer cost? Try $100 billion
A Microsoft datacenter.

It looks like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Sora, among other projects, are about to get a lot more juice. According to a new report shared by The Information, Microsoft and OpenAI are working on a new data center project, one part of which will be a massive AI supercomputer dubbed "Stargate." Microsoft is said to be footing the bill, and the cost is astronomical as the name of the supercomputer suggests -- the whole project might cost over $100 billion.

Spending over $100 billion on anything is mind-blowing, but when put into perspective, the price truly shows just how big a venture this might be: The Information claims that the new Microsoft and OpenAI joint project might cost a whopping 100 times more than some of the largest data centers currently in operation.

Read more
There’s an unexpected, new competitor in PC gaming
Snapdragon's X Elite PC SoC.

Windows gaming on ARM is becoming a legitimate possibility, and it's not just thanks to the recently unveiled emulation options, but it's chiefly due to the fact that Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite is shaping up to be pretty excellent. Spotted in a recent benchmark, the CPU was seen beating some of the best processors on the current market. Are we finally at a point where it's not always going to be a choice between just Intel and AMD?

The benchmarks were posted by user @techinmul on Twitter, and the results couldn't be more promising for the upcoming Qualcomm processor. The chip was tested in Geekbench 6, and although it's important not to take these results entirely at face value, it's an impressive show of performance that bodes well for upcoming thin and light laptops.

Read more