Bill Gates has always been an avid ready. As a child, he once read his parents’ set of World Book Encyclopedias, in alphabetical order. He continues to read about a book a week, and the following are his top picks for 2016:
1. String Theory by David Foster Wallace
“This book has nothing to do with physics, but its title will make you look super smart if you’re reading it on a train or plane.”
2. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
“This memoir, by the co-founder of Nike, is a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like: messy, precarious, and riddled with mistakes.”
3. The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee
“Mukherjee wrote this book for a lay audience, because he knows that the new genome technologies are at the cusp of affecting us all in profound ways.”
4. The Myth of the Strong Leader by Archie Brown
“Brown shows that the leaders who make the biggest contributions to history and humanity generally are not the ones we perceive to be “strong leaders.” Instead, they tend to be the ones who collaborate, delegate, and negotiate—and recognize that no one person can or should have all the answers.”
