5 books for the summer, which advises to read Bill Gates

Bill Gates is one of the few truly well-known people in the industry who regularly voices his list of books to read. He is echoed by a young colleague - Mark Zuckerberg - who has specially created a separate community, A Year of the Book , in Facebook, in which they jointly select the most significant book of the year. Also on the Internet you can find other collections of literature that one or another prominent person in his field considers important, but, apparently, only from Bill Gates you can get real "feedback" and find out what the richest person on Earth prefers to read . The former head of Microsoft has a personal blog for this purpose, where he describes his impressions of the new products.

This publication is the second in the series. Previously, it was possible to learn about the six books that Gates recommended in 2015.

" Seveneves ". The science fiction novel was released in 2015 by Neil Stevenson, a well-known Russian-speaking audience, based on the book Cryptonomicon. The plot of "Seveneves" is built around an approaching apocalypse - in two years an asteroid should fall to Earth and humanity tries to save itself by sending people into space. After 5000 years, the descendants of those who escaped from the catastrophe decide to return to the planet ... The book is filled with technical details on space flight (apparently, after the Martian, many authors began to treat this topic very thoroughly), and Gates does not regret reading the first time in 10 years of the novel "easy" genre. Russian translation of the book found on the Internet failed.

" How Not To Be Wrong ". The author of the book, Jordan Ellenberg , professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, discusses with readers how the thoughtless and careless use of mathematical facts can lead to terrible misunderstandings. Ellenberg considers several well-known concepts, such as elections and the popularity of a candidate, and assesses the reliability of facts about him, first from the point of view of "mass culture", and then from the point of view of mathematics. There is a useful point - theoretically, you can make a profit by playing the lottery, if you properly evaluate the actions of other players. As you can understand, the Russian translation of the book is being prepared by several publishers at once.

" The Vital Question " by Nika Lane, a British biochemist, evolutionist and winner of many scientific awards in biology and biochemistry. On Geektimes there is a detailed review of his previous book " Energy, sex, suicide: mitochondria and the meaning of life ." The author considers questions of the origin of life from various aspects. Bill Gates considers Nick Lane's book "... an important contribution to our understanding of where we come from." There is also no Russian translation.

" The Power to Compete " - authors of the book Hiroshi Mikitani and his father Ryoki Mikitani. At home in Japan, they are known as successful businessmen and owners of the Japanese eBay, called Rakuten. The book mainly addresses the issues of large business and specific problems of Japan: why successful corporations of the 80s lose ground under the pressure of China and South Korea and what it is - the Japanese economic miracle, about which so much was heard a decade ago. It is unlikely that a Russian translation of this book will appear in the near future.

" Sapiens. A brief history of mankind " - the last book on the list of Bill Gates and the first, for which there is a Russian translation. The author is a doctor of history and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Yuval Noi Harari. Sapiens also strongly recommended reading Mark Zuckerberg, considering that the book is a unique study of the history of mankind, written in an easy and accessible language, and becoming a bestseller in 20 countries at once. Dr. Harari also makes predictions for the future, based on well-known facts: no country can fully pursue economic policy independently, and the world is increasingly influenced by the global market. At the same time, in the next two hundred years, thanks to genetic manipulation and cyborgization, humankind will gain immortality, and the difference between the man of the future and what we see now will be the same as if we were comparing modern homo sapiens with chimpanzees.