laced with a healthy dose of humor. Bill Gates liked it too, it was the novel he gave to 50 friends!
This past year, Bill Gates has loved Turtles All the Way Down by John Green; the book deals with
"serious themes like mental illness, but John's stories are always entertaining and full of great
literary references." Here are the other amazing books Bill Gates has read in 2017:
- 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's 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...read this book about the eviction crisis in Milwaukee.....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....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.....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 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."
- The above titles are available at the CIDlibrary, with the exception of the books by Thi Bui and Vaclac Smil - these are available through an interlibrary loan.
- Read! Read!! Read!!!