比尔·盖茨2018夏季书单:天才的内在动力是什么?
作为拥有897亿美元资产的IT产业大亨,比尔·盖茨在致力于慈善事业之余,还保持着一个很好的习惯——阅读。每年夏季,他都会向读者推荐今年他喜欢的书籍,内容涵盖科技、数学、政治、农业等许多领域。
一如往年,比尔•盖茨公布了2018年夏季推荐书单。相比往年,这些书带给他更多思考,天才的内在动力是什么?为什么糟糕的事情会发生在好人身上?人类从哪里来,又要到哪里去?盖茨认为,这些书都非常有趣,而且大部分篇幅不长,通读完也不会花太长时间。
也许在炎炎夏日你不能像亿万富翁们一样度假避暑,但你可以借鉴他们的书单,与他们共同思索。在一方小天地里从一个小窗口探索世界,与不同人物精神交流,戚戚于心之时获得精神上的凉爽与慰藉。
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以下为比尔•盖茨2018年夏季推荐书单:
1、Lincoln in the Bardo(George Saunders)
在《亚伯拉罕林肯:吸血鬼猎人》的书和同名电影的催化下,似乎林肯的形象渐渐和鬼魂就摘不开了。这本书混合了美国内战的历史事实和想象元素,基本上是166个鬼魂之间的一段漫长对话,其中包括林肯已故儿子的鬼魂。对于林肯必须经受痛苦和责任双重力量碾压这一点,我有了新的认识。有些书内容迷人、意义模糊,使你在读完后很想与朋友讨论讨论,这本书就属于其中之一。
2、Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved(Kate Bowler)
杜克神学院教授鲍勒被诊断出四期结肠癌后,她开始试图理解这为什么会发生,想办法与偶然事件的随机性作斗争,想弄清楚人们究竟随机事件时能做些什么。结果是诞生了这本令人悲伤却又出奇有趣的关于信仰的回忆录,而且谈到了你自己有一天终将死去的关键问题。"有一些以'为什么'为开头的问题,无法用事实来得出满意的答案,"盖茨说,他认为这本书解释了一个重要论点,那就是过度纠结于因果思维是有危险的。
3、Origin Story: A Big History of Everything(David Christian)
盖茨在介绍这本书的时候用了一个非常有意思的概念:Now we have a big box of knowledge,but the big box of knowledge relate to each other in a strong way。这种寻找看似独立的知识点之见的联系的学习方法,真的非常有趣。从起初的大爆炸到今天复杂的社会,将多种学科中的观点和证据编织在一个单独的叙事框架下,历史学家大卫有一种将世界历史的复杂性变得可以接近的方式。不论你属于哪一类,这本书都将带给你关于人类在宇宙中位置的更深刻的认识。
4、Factfulness(Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund)
盖茨说这是他读过的写得最好的书之一。汉斯是盖茨的朋友,于2017年过世。他生前是一位才华出众的全球健康讲师,教给你通过一种突破性的方式来理解关于世界的基本真相:人们的生活在如何变好,以及世界在哪些方面仍旧需要改进。
汉斯在这本书中提供了一个思考这个世界的新的框架,将全球人口划分为四个不同的收入群体。处在第一层级的那十亿人都很贫穷,而处在第四层级的那十亿人则能负担得起汽车和度假。
盖茨说:“这对我来说是一个突破。汉斯在书中阐述的框架正是我多年来为自己建立的,但我从来没有这么详细地表达出来过。我将继续尝试使用这个框架。”
5、Leonardo da Vinci(Walter Isaacson)
达芬奇的迷人程度简直不言而喻,这位充满了故事和神秘感的男子不仅仅火于《达芬奇密码》,他留下的秘密,关于自动化机械、关于符号学等,不知牵动着多少学者的心。虽然他是以画家的身份被现在大多数人所熟知,然而从人体解剖学再到戏剧,达·芬奇的兴趣广泛得令人发指。艾萨克森用非常高超的方式,描绘了达·芬奇生活的不同侧面,并且解释了是什么使他如此与众不同。艾萨克森的另外两本关于爱因斯坦和乔布斯的伟大传记作品同样值得一读。
比尔·盖茨2018夏季书单英文版介绍
5 Books Worth Reading This Summer
I’ve read some fantastic books lately. Here are a few you might want to read this summer.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Anything about Lincoln is interesting, I admire him and the tough things he faced, including having his son die being among the worst. And it is striking this balance between the tragedy of life and the joy of life. It’s about grief and purpose and it’s very touching.
Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler
You’ve got this one person who’s sick and is trying to figure out how they should deal with their bad news. You don’t want to think of outcomes as just being random, you want to be able to connect them to something you control. She’s not asking you to cry for her. She’s just telling you what happened.
Origin Story by David Christian
The whole theory of Big History is to have a structure that makes it easy to understand and explain things. I think it helps people to have that understanding that now, we have big blocks of knowledge, but the big blocks of knowledge relate to each other in a strong way. For me, this broad knowledge of how all the pieces fit together. You know, to me that’s interesting.
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
It’s pretty fantastic because he really talks through how you should think about the world. For the first time in this book, he teaches you a categorization of four tiers that is super helpful. Like tier 1: no bike, tier 2: bike, tier 3: some cars in the picture, tier 4: a lot of cars, too many cars.
I never got to tell Hans how much I liked his book, but the world would be better if millions of people read it.
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
What Isaacson does is say what made da Vinci special. He’s most known for his art. He thought of himself as a military engineer and a scientist, then an expert on music. And so he really defines the term Renaissance man.
These are books that I’d recommend this summer. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.
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作者:比尔•盖茨,原载:比尔•盖茨的Twitter帐号@billgates,本文版权归属作者/译者/原载媒体。
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