Five Brain-Boosting Books Bill Gates Suggests You Read This Summer

 

The summer is just getting started, which means it’s about time for a few good books—and Bill Gates himself has five great suggestions for books that’ll expand your mind on topics of science, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science fiction. He runs them down in this quick video.

Bill elaborates on some of his specific thoughts on each book in the video, so it’s well worth a watch. Here’s a quick list of the five books:

• The Vital Question, by Nick Lane
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari
• How Not to be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg
• The Power to Compete, by Ryoichi Mikitani and Hiroshi Mikitani
• Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson

From the origins of life, the history of mitochondria, the history of consciousness and a past to present to future look at human civilization, to mathematics and the world of math, all the way to entrepreneurship and business, and finally to science fiction (respectively,) there’s a book here for everyone, although we’d honestly suggest reading all five. After all, the summer’s just now starting.