
The Best Books I Read in 2014 - johnny99
http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Best-Books-2014
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marban
I'm more interested in the impact on sale numbers of these books — Seems like
his lists are getting more buzz than NYT's bestsellers in recent months.

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theklub
I'd like to think Gates produces/films/creates his own little videos.

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marban
Movie Maker doesn't support stop-motion.

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frogpelt
When I saw that Bill Gates called Business Adventures by John Brooks his
favorite business book ever back in July, I figured he must have some deal
with the publisher who was reprinting it.

According to the Forbes article linked below, they saw his blog post and
rushed to reprint it based on the demand he created.

Source: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/07/28/how-
bil...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/07/28/how-bill-gates-
and-a-media-start-up-made-an-ancient-book-a-modern-best-seller/)

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mkoryak
I kind of expected to see some good fiction there. Does Bill not read any
fiction?

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prestonbriggs
hmm, his list includes "The Rosie Effect".

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mkoryak
and so it does.

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daktanis
I think he should have picked books he liked less but were written by people
other than white men so there was more diversity in the list.

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johnny99
Not that I think he's biased (I have no idea), but perhaps he should have read
more diverse authors to begin with, to have a more diverse pool to choose
from.

I prefer to know what he actually likes, rather than what he thinks would look
best if he claimed to like.

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JoergR
5 books, 5 white men. _sigh_

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hackuser
While JeorgR's point isn't well articulated, it's sad that almost any
suggestion of racial discrimination appears to be reflexively downvoted and
shouted down. So far we're unable to discuss the issue intelligently, which is
what our society most needs.

Racial discrimination is widespread, and often unconsciously. For example, one
of the first things you learn about hiring is that people instinctively hire
employees like themselves. That's why comments like JeorgR's are valuable, to
bring it to our attention.

If ~33% of the U.S. population (I'm guessing at the proportion of white males)
dominate so much of our reading, our government, business, entertainment,
technology, etc. -- just looking at the data, it raises serious (and what
should be intellectually interesting) questions about how that happens, and
about justice and fairness for the 66% whose opportunities are apparently much
reduced.

EDIT: added a bit to the last sentence

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GHFigs
_While JeorgR 's point isn't well articulated_

There is no point being articulated at all in the above comment. It's an vague
insinuation meant to derail. Please don't prop up his shitposting just because
you think you might agree with something he might have meant.

If you're not here to tell us that (e.g.) you think Bill Gates is racist
because of the books he read this year then what do you really even have to
say? White guilt platitudes? Come on. That's not a conversation, that's an
insult.

If you (et alia) actually believe it's an important issue, then you would
actually be selective about when the subject is broached, so that actual
intelligent conversations between willing and engaged participants could
actually happen. Injecting "awareness" at every opportunity just debases the
whole topic and turns into a sick game of making appearances and gestures.
Nobody wants to talk about the supposedly important subject because
everybody's tired of getting yelled at by the deafly intolerant and inflexible
blowhards that keep bringing it up.

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hackuser
OT: It's so unfortunate to read comments like this. Where on the Internet is
there a forum where people adhere to some standard of behavior?

I would be much happier if HN would kill any comments that are not civil, no
matter what else is in them. This kind of comment significantly reduces the
value of HN; imagine the quality if they were all removed.

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GHFigs
I find it difficult to believe that you're truly concerned with 'the value of
HN'.

