
Books I read this year - borisjabes
https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Best-Books-2017
======
jimmies
It really surprised me that two of the books he mentioned were about the
Vietnam war.

I am a Vietnamese millennial who have never experienced a day of the war and
moved to the US as a college student. While most people have come to the
agreement that the war is over, I have seen myself many ugly scars it left in
people's minds. My friend and I would go to a Vietnamese supermarket, and
after hearing that my friend was not speaking "hello, how are you" with the
South Vietnamese accent (like a refugee), the cashier refused to look at or
speak to her. We checked out in silence. We, as millennials, have never
decided to invade the South. Our parents didn't either. We didn't fight that
war, we didn't endorse that war. We don't have shit to do with it.

The war has ended 40 years yet we felt the pain every once in a while.

~~~
maxxxxx
The US is still not over the civil war which was 150 years ago. Stuff like
this takes a very long time. I am surprised how quickly Europe moved on from
WW2 but I wouldn't be surprised if old resentments from that time would flare
up again in the future.

~~~
te_chris
I live in the UK at the moment. They won't fucking shut up about WWI/WWII.
It's one reason why the brexit negotiations have been such a mess: parts of
the govt are still under the delusion that they're some sort of plucky saviour
of Europe.

~~~
jwdunne
A few older working class specifically cited being ruled by Germany by
stealth. I think that's totally ridiculous and I voted to remain, though I am
a millennial and don't know life outside of the EU.

Irish tensions are resurfacing now too. A sticking point is the Irish/Northern
Irish border. The government is being propped up by 10 fanatical, conservative
unionist MPs (not the Tory kind) and have literally tanked what could have
been significant EU progress.

Now the feeling is that the unions hold disproportionate power over the UK
government and that doesn't play well with a fragile good Friday agreement.

Same story with Scotland. Now that NI potentially had single market access
plus customs union, which those in power in NI didn't want, Scotland wants
this too. Independence referendum was won based on "better together" and yet
it seems they are now being dragged out of the EU against their will.

What a mess!

~~~
stevenwoo
As an American it was hard to relate to the fear of being ruled by Germany by
stealth which it came up in the TV series Victoria because her husband Prince
Albert was German - it seems fairly deeply rooted xenophobia? or something if
it still gets brought up.

~~~
petepete
A _huge_ chunk of the British Royal Family is German. Albert (of Saxe-Coburg
and Gotha) was Victoria's _first cousin_.

~~~
jwdunne
And at the time of the Great War, the monarchs of Britain, Germany and Russia
were all first cousins.

This photo is particularly striking:

[https://i.redditmedia.com/2ZKJnNVW1-Mn41TE8dqXFMten1_L6gBZ7I...](https://i.redditmedia.com/2ZKJnNVW1-Mn41TE8dqXFMten1_L6gBZ7I_0ZQV1Gwc.jpg?w=320&s=cef2559de0676bbf92ec52c2e9aa7684)

~~~
TomK32
One small details from the months before the war: No one invited the greater
family to the funeral of the murdered arch-duke.

~~~
jwdunne
Another detail near the end of the war: King George wanted to give his cousin
Tsar Nicholas asylum after the Bolshevik Revolution but chose not to for
political reasons.

Family eh?

------
rat_1234
Unlike Ray Dalio, when Bill Gates talks about something like books it never
feels like he's trying to impress anyone.

It's "here are some books I really like and maybe you would too" versus "I am
a genius, if you enjoy these books you might be a genius too."

~~~
Hasz
To be fair, Bill Gates doesn’t need to impress anyone. He could say “the sky
is purple” and he would be as impressive an individual.

------
icodemuch
I really appreciate the fact that he continues to put out reading lists. I
believe that people are more motivated to read after finding out out Bill
Gates reads a lot bc people want to emulate him (and his success).

More people reading is obviously only a good thing if you believe that reading
is a good habit for people to have bc it exposes you to different arguments,
opinions and ideas. I do think that reading is a net good. If you don't I'm
interested to hear why.

~~~
jondubois
I like the image that Bill Gates projects but my cynical side thinks that this
reading list is just a medium for him to maintain his public image of being
that sympathetic, altruistic billionaire.

20 years ago Bill Gates was a universally disliked individual... He wasn't yet
well versed when it came to managing his image. Being universally disliked
comes with problems like lawsuits and other personal threats. I wouldn't be
surprised if he has a whole team of people constantly working to manage his
public persona.

Makes it hard to believe anything that any celebrity says or does these days.

If this year has shown us anything, it's that reputations can be turned inside
out really quickly.

~~~
iamthirsty
I think that’s a bit of a stretch for Gates, though. He stepped down from CEO
almost 20 years ago and basically has spent that time giving away his and
other people’s money for truly good causes. That’ll turn anyone’s perception.

~~~
scaryclam
I think people being able to see him as a human instead of the cutthroat
business man has helped. I have to admit having some hate for the guy while he
was still in charge of Microsoft. Now I can look at him in a different
light...or maybe that's just because Ballmer took over...

------
byproxy
"Evicted" is one of the most crushing books I've read. Desmond does a good job
of showing how the feedback loop of poverty works.

~~~
milofeynman
Is the Gates foundation currently working to tackle the issue of poverty in
America?

~~~
burkaman
Yes: [https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/US-
Program/Washin...](https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/US-
Program/Washington-State)

------
AdamFernandez
I really appreciate that one of the richest (sometimes the richest) humans on
the planet takes the time to read about the experience of poverty in depth.
Hopefully that continues to influence his philanthropy, and his influence on
what other wealthy individuals and other policy makers do.

~~~
guywaffle
It’s easy to be nice after a person has made big bucks by cheating everyone.
Watch “Pirates of Silicon Valley”

~~~
kmnc
Why should we condemn a person for good acts based on previous poor actions?
Or are you just so cynical that you can't take his good actions in good faith?

~~~
greglindahl
I suspect that the condemnation is for previous poor actions, not for the
current good acts.

~~~
majani
But what better atonement for previous sins than giving away 99% of your
wealth to charity?

~~~
greglindahl
And you might not be surprised to learn that many people don't think that's
good enough.

This is not a new issue, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_\(industrialist\))

------
iooi
Two of the books he mentions won the Pulitzer prize for non-fiction: "Black
Flags: The Rise of ISIS" and "Evicted".

They are both excellent.

------
brudgers
I admire Bill Gates. I wish he read more poetry.

[https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-
poor/](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/)

------
hodgesrm
These sound like good books to read. If you poke around gatesnotes.com you'll
also find a video of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet testing mattresses. Looks
like fun!

[https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Testing-
Mattress...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Testing-Mattresses-
with-Warren-Buffett)

------
x43b
This is tangential, but I wonder what was meant by Eddie Izzard lacking
natural talent. Outside of rare provable conditions (learning disabilities,
height, etc.) I wonder if natural talent exists or if it was a matter of
determination plus deliberate practice before people noticed and thus declared
someone "naturally talented".

~~~
flanbiscuit
There was a Freakonomics Radio podcast ep about this very thing

[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/peak/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/peak/)

------
mikkqu
Maybe not the best place to ask, but is it known what engine is used behind
his website?

I can assume it's probably something custom made? I like the way topics are
structured, the navigation is clear, nice comment section.

Are there any known tools or service capable of building a full-featured
website like this? Any good open source projects? (please no jokes about
Wordpress)

~~~
gitgud
Yes, it looks like a Zurb site? (what ever that is)
[https://foundation.zurb.com/](https://foundation.zurb.com/)

If you're interested in the tech behind websites, then I recommend getting the
Wappalyzer extension for your browser, It tells you what software is most-
likely running on a specific website you're looking at.

~~~
aptwebapps
Zurb Foundation is the inspiration for Bootstrap (some people would say it's a
bit more than just the inspiration).

------
joekrill
I look forward to this list every year -- I'm never disappointed with the
recommendations! Can't wait to get started on these.

------
egonschiele
Evicted is incredible. Totally worth reading if you haven't lived in crushing
poverty in America.

------
agentbond007
Technology is integral to the innovation story. Gates wrote. "Smil shows that
it has even more to do with energy innovation."

------
ScottBurson
A book I just read that I highly recommend: _Red Notice_ by Bill Browder. The
true story about how a grandson of the American Communist Party's 1940
presidential candidate made millions of dollars investing in Russia in the
1990s, and became one of Putin's most hated enemies.

~~~
koyote
Very interesting book indeed although the author sometimes comes off a bit
self-righteous in my opinion.

~~~
ImSkeptical
I also felt a bit of antipathy for the author. Something about a capitalist
traveling to the former USSR, in it's vulnerable time of rebirth, and
exploiting poor uneducated people to make a profit rubbed me the wrong way.

------
bastijn
Reading many of the books often shared by on these kinds of lists by ‘famous’
people I recently started to wonder: “how does one come up with these
titles?”. They are not on the top 10 of your average book shop.

~~~
therealdrag0
Do you mean how does the reader come across these books or how does the
publisher come up with the book title?

~~~
bastijn
The first. How does the reader discover these titles.

~~~
hello_friend
Probably has a very extensive method to discover these books. He's no ordinary
man, he's smart and experienced enough he can research which books to read
himself, he can't read everything, so he has to be very selective.

He probably also has staff whose job is to find interesting books for him to
read.

Then add recommendations from friends and other people.

------
zw123456
I agree with all the positive comments about BG. Also, interesting he sited
two books about Vietnam. If you haven't caught the Ken Burns documentary on
Vietnam
([http://kenburns.com/films/vietnam/](http://kenburns.com/films/vietnam/)) you
should try to catch it if it repeats on your PBS station or order them from
pbs.org and help support them. KB always does great work and if you don't have
time to read a book about it, it is a really great documentary series IMHO.

------
criddell
I really like the animation embedded in the article. If that person happens to
read this and has other videos, I'd love it if you would share some links and
details on how you made the video.

------
cholantesh
Did anyone else using Ublock Plus have trouble viewing this page before
disabling the extension?

~~~
andrepd
Using uBlock origin. No problems.

~~~
cholantesh
I ought to have been more specific: I'm using Firefox 57.

~~~
scaryclam
Firefox 57 here, ublock enabled and no problems.

------
nuna
I cant see the list, just a banner with his picture. I am on Chrome

~~~
adpirz
If you're running Ghostery, that's why. Either Pause or Trust Site and it'll
work.

~~~
nuna
thanks, that was it. I forget i have it most of the time

------
bob_theslob646
>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.

~~~
Shivetya
Just an FYI, I checked and all of these are all available on Amazon and in
Kindle format.

------
poutrathor
>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.

International star is technically correct since he is known both in the USA
and Great-Britain.

But that's the first time ever I heard of him.

~~~
onesun
Ah, the old "if I've never heard of him he must not be famous" logic.

~~~
magpi3
I think the point is that he is not famous outside of english speaking
countries

~~~
oculusthrift
he’s done shows in french german and spanish across the world...

------
otakucode
>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.

Perhaps consider the large-scale consequences of wage-fixing by the tech
giants including Microsoft in the early computer industry? Maybe divorcing the
compensation workers received totally from the value of the work they were
doing (the actual value to the company) and letting annual increases fall so
far behind annual efficiency increases had something to do with it?

Around 1980, wages died. Around 1980, computers were introduced to the
workplace. Around 1980, average worker productivity stopped going up by 1 or
2% per year but jumped to 10% or 20% a year thanks to those computers. These
things are not mere coincidence. To me, they smell a lot like exactly what
happened with the rise of industrialized factories that reduced entire
families to working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, children included, just to
feed themselves. Everyone said 'the machines do the work, they don't deserve
any more money.' And they were reduced to starving. And according to any
statistic you care to look at, we are headed directly back to that situation.

Interestingly, social mores around sex originally became extremely restrictive
during the Industrial Era due to a need to suppress the birth rate of the
lower class.... and we are seeing sexual mores become more restrictive by the
day now too, though families literally starving as a result of adolescent
workers having babies they couldn't afford to feed is thankfully rare.

~~~
BeetleB
Your comment would be more meaningful if it were as well thought out as the
book Bill Gates read. A Hacker News comment will have difficulty competing
with a well researched piece of work.

