From Klara And The Sun To Surrender

‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ by Amor Towles

This novel moved Gates so deeply that he cried. Towles, an American author, takes readers back in time to Russia of 1922 when the Bolsheviks had the upper hand in the Russian Revolution.

The story follows an aristocrat named Count Alexander Rostov who is sentenced by a Bolshevik tribunal to house arrest in the grand hotel Metropol across the street from the Kremlin. Though he has never worked a day in his life, the Count will have to spend his remaining days in an attic and work in the hotel. It is under the new circumstances that the erudite and witty Count rediscovers himself.

Gates on the book: “A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing story because it manages to be a bit of everything. It has romance, politics, espionage, parenthood and poetry. The book is technically historical fiction, but you’d be just as accurate in calling it a thriller or a love story. Even if Russia isn’t on your must-visit list, I think everyone can enjoy Towles’s trip to Moscow.”

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‘Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities’ by Vaclav Smil

Vaclav Smil is a Czech-Canadian Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg in Canada. He obtained his PhD in Geography from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of Pennsylvania State University in 1971 and was named among the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy in 2010.

Published by the MIT Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Growth is a book about everything on our planet — from microorganisms to civilisations. It underlines the fact that growth is at the heart of everything, but that there are challenges in measuring the impact of societal growth vis-à-vis evolutionary growth.

However, the book is not for everyone. Bill Gates mentioned in his review that the book contains long sections that read like an engineering manual, even though it can indeed teach a lot about growth in both human-made and natural worlds.

Gates on the book: “The book gave me a new appreciation for how many smart people had to try things out, make mistakes, and eventually succeed.”

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‘How the World Really Works’ by Vaclav Smil

In this book, Smil takes a look at the seven fundamental areas governing the survival and prosperity of the human race. Energy and food production are two of the areas. Through his observations and conclusions, Smil underlines that goals such as globalisation and decarbonisation are distant dreams in the modern world.

Gates says that he is an admirer of Smil’s works, but warns that the author’s “style is not for everyone.”

“Many of his books are dense and packed with data, and it is an understatement to say they have never sold especially well,” the billionaire businessman observes in his review.

Gates on the book: “Because he [Smil] has gone so deep into such specific topics, he is qualified to step back and write a broad overview for a general audience, which is what he has done with How the World Really Works. If you want a brief but thorough education in numeric thinking about many of the fundamental forces that shape human life, this is the book to read.”

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‘Klara and the Sun’ by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese-British novelist who won the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day in 1989 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Living at the 2023 Academy Awards, becoming only the sixth Nobel laureate in history to earn an Oscar nod.

Klara and the Sun is a sci-fi novel set in a dystopian future where some children are genetically enhanced for better academic performance. Because of the lack of socialising, robots serve as companions to children. Klara is one such robot, and the story is narrated by the machine who is brought to act as the companion of a girl named Josie, who is suffering from an illness due to genetic engineering.

Gates on the book: “Ishiguro certainly makes you think about what life with super-intelligent robots might look like. He never claims to be a technologist or a futurist, but his perspective on artificial life is provocative nonetheless.”

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‘Mendeleyev’s Dream’ by Paul Strathern

Mendeleyev’s Dream is about Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev (also written as Dmitri Mendeleev). In 1969, Mendeleyev first presented his periodic table, which is today a cornerstone of chemistry. He famously wrote in his diary: “I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper.”

Through his book, Strathern takes readers on a journey through time and the history of chemistry from the ancient philosophies to the splitting of the atom. And at the heart of it, all is the dream that Mendeleyev saw.

Gates on the book: “Mendeleyev’s Dream is the best book I’ve ever read on the periodic table. It helps you understand how it all got pieced together and why it’s so helpful. It’s also a fascinating look at how new science develops.”

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‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ by Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein is perhaps one of the greatest American science fiction writers and is credited with making significant contributions to the genre. He wrote for both children and young adults. Gates says in his review of Stranger in a Strange Land that computing and Heinlein were the interests around which he bonded with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen when they were kids.

Stranger in a Strange Land is recognised by many as Heinlein’s best-known work. Published in 1961, the story follows Valentine Michael Smith, a human born and raised on Mars. An adult Smith returns to Earth at a time when it has been ravaged by World War III and organised religions wield enormous power. Smith, who is physically more powerful than Earthlings, challenges the order by creating a religion of his own where concepts such as free love and communal living are encouraged.

Gates on the book: “Of all the sci-fi I read as a teenager, Stranger in a Strange Land is my favourite. It was published in 1961 and is Heinlein’s most popular book…Everything I had read before them had a tidy ending. Here, though, the ending is unclear. It’s up to us to decide what happens next, just like in real life.”

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Everyone admires Bono. Gates perhaps a little more as he calls himself “lucky enough” to be the U2 frontman’s friend. In fact, the Gates Foundation is a major supporter of ONE, a non-profit organisation that Bono co-founded.

Surrender is Bono’s autobiography. From his early life in Dublin to his work as an activist fighting poverty and AIDS, the acclaimed musician describes key details about himself and his work. Of course, his time as the frontman of one of the world’s greatest bands is also part of the book.

“When I started to write this book, I was hoping to draw in detail what I’d previously only sketched in songs. The people, places, and possibilities in my life,” Bono, whose real name is Paul David Hewson, writes about the book on its official site.

“Surrender is the story of one pilgrim’s lack of progress…With a fair amount of fun along the way,” he adds.

Gates on the book: “I loved Surrender. You get to observe the band in the process of creating some of their most iconic songs. The book is filled with clever, self-deprecating lines like “Just how effective can a singer with anger issues be in the cause of nonviolence?” And you’ll learn a lot about the challenges he dealt with in his campaigns for debt relief and HIV treatment in Africa.”

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‘Team of Rivals’ by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1994 book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.

Her book Team of Rivals is a biography of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. It informs readers how Lincoln rose to power during the turbulent times of the 1850s and 1860s in America by placing himself in the shoes of others and his ability to understand their feelings.

The book, which Gates calls the best he has ever read about the great American president, served as the inspiration for Lincoln, the 2012 film which received 12 Academy Award nominations, winning two including Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis.

Gates on the book: “There are significant parallels between the current moment and the 1860s, when the nation was dealing with violent insurrection, difficult questions about race, and ideological divides between states and regions. Team of Rivals has a lot of insights about Lincoln that leaders can learn from today.”

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“The Heart” by Maylis de Kerangal

In his 2017 review of the book, Gates notes that The Heart is “poetry disguised as a novel.”

“Poetry” is, in fact, the word several prominent reviewers have used to describe the beauty of the book, which, interestingly, is about death, grief and closure.

The story spans 24 hours. Three friends go surfing, and one of them is killed in a car accident on their way back. What follows is the dilemma of the deceased boy’s family over a decision to transplant his heart to another body which needs it. De Kerangal, an acclaimed French author, makes the heart transplant the centre of her book’s exploration of philosophy as well as a key piece in explaining how organ donation works in France.

Gates on the book: “It’s not the plot that makes The Heart such a wonderful book. First of all, there’s the language. It makes me think of Vladimir Nabokov more than anybody else…The book connects you deeply with people who are only in the story for a few minutes. You get really detailed backstories about all the characters…And then there are the themes Kerangal is dealing with: grief most of all, and how it feels to have to change your life suddenly because somebody who was in it isn’t in it anymore.”

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‘The Inner Game of Tennis’ by Timothy Gallwey

The Inner Game of Tennis was published in 1974 and is a book on human psychology that reveals how the actual game of tennis involves two parts — an outer game and an inner game. Gallwey posits that while the outer game is against the opponent on the court, the inner game is played within the player’s own mind against opponents such as anxiety and self-doubt.

The book is hailed as one of the best in sports psychology, which came at a time when the concept didn’t even exist. Today, it is not just an essential read for players but also for those in management or basically anyone looking to sharpen their mental skills.

Gates on the book: “Even though I stopped playing tennis in my 20s so I could focus on Microsoft and didn’t start again until my forties, Gallwey’s insights subtly affected how I showed up at work. For example, although I’m a big believer in being critical of myself and objective about my own performance, I try to do it the Gallwey way: in a constructive fashion that hopefully improves my performance.”

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