On his blog, gatesnotes, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates listed his favorite books of 2016. Here are his top four titles, with an honorable mention, and a little of what he had to say about them:
String Theory by David Foster Wallace (Library of America, $19.95, 9781598534801).
"String Theory is a collection of five of Wallace's best essays on tennis, a sport I gave up in my Microsoft days and am once again pursuing with a passion. You don’t have to play or even watch tennis to love this book. The late author wielded a pen as skillfully as Roger Federer wields a tennis racket."
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (Scribner, $29, 9781501135910).
"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. Here Knight opens up in a way few CEOs are willing to do. He tells his story as honestly as he can. It’s an amazing tale."
The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner, $32, 9781476733500).
"In his latest book, Mukherjee guides us through the past, present, and future of genome science, with a special focus on huge ethical questions that the latest and greatest genome technologies provoke. 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."
The Myth of the Strong Leader by Archie Brown (Basic Books, $29.99, 9780465027668).
"This year's fierce election battle prompted me to pick up this 2014 book, by an Oxford University scholar who has studied political leadership--good, bad, and ugly--for more than 50 years. 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.' "
And the honorable mention:
The Grid by Gretchen Bakke (Bloomsbury, $27, 9781608196104).
"Part of the reason I find this topic fascinating is because my first job, in high school, was writing software for the entity that controls the power grid in the Northwest. But even if you have never given a moment's thought to how electricity reaches your outlets, I think this book would convince you that the electrical grid is one of the greatest engineering wonders of the modern world."
