Top Ten Books of 2012 for Bill Gates

Saving his list for myself.

1. The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker

2. Deng Xiaoping by Ezra Vogel

3. The Quest by Daniel Yergin

4. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

5. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

6. One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World? by Gordon Conway

7. A World-Class Education by Vivien Stewart

8. Academically Adrift by Richard Arum & Joshipa Roksa

9. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff

10. The City that Became Safe: New York’s Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control by Franklin Zimring

I haven’t read any of them, but I do think that Mr. Gates is trying to make the world a better place outside of technology, and he’s a brilliant person. The fact that these books made him think makes me want to try and read a few next year.