比尔-盖茨：今年夏天你该读的六本书

源济

　　新浪财经讯 北京时间7月15日下午消息，比尔-盖茨推荐供暑期阅读的六本书，他称这些书“非常有益且语言优美”，他自己从中学到了很多东西。

　　1、《商业历险》(Business Adventures)，作者John Brooks

　　这是盖茨最喜爱的商业书籍，尽管这部12篇《纽约客》文集1971年来便不再印刷，盖茨称该书的经验教训一直既往的适用。

　　盖茨写到：“尽管这本书出版于四十多年前，却提供了对商业本质的洞见，这在任何时期都让人受用，例如如何创建大型企业、聘用拥有合适技能的员工以及倾听客户回馈。”

　　2、《压力测试》(Stress Test)，美国前财长盖特纳

　　盖特纳认为金融危机是不可避免的，他称政府有缓解(尽管不能避免)问题的独特权限，但这涉及众多艰难抉择。

　　盖茨写到：“盖特纳让抗击全球金融崩溃之战具有了人性面孔，他不仅要面对朝野内外的批评之声，还因几乎无法与家人团聚而内疚。抗击金融危机的政治总是很肮脏，但如果人们更多的了解该事件，这将是有益社会的。”

　　3、《天字第一号讲坛：西奥多-罗斯福、塔夫特总统以及新闻业的黄金时代》(The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, 

　　盖茨称：“我对作者提出的核心问题非常感兴趣：社会变革究竟是如何发生的？是仅凭伟人一己之力，还是首先需要其他因素创造条件？”

　　尽管该书涉及到的是1900年代的事件，盖茨称其对今天也有意义，语言也很优美。

　　4、《玫瑰项目：一本小说》，作者Graeme Simsion

　　该书讲述了一位患阿斯伯格症的遗传学教授如何寻找真爱，内容有趣而又发人深思。传递出的寓意是人们应接受自身以及自己善于做的事情。盖茨称，当妻子梅琳达为他阅读书中段落时，他会笑出声。盖茨称他晚上11点开始阅读，直到凌晨3点一口气看完。他称：“我还给朋友送去了几本。”

　　5、《第六灭绝：非自然史》，作者Elizabeth Kolbert

　　盖茨写到：“自然科学家假设，地球历史上曾有六次灭绝事件，如恐龙灭绝。作者有力论证人类将引发第六次灭绝。”

　　他称阅读此书让人清醒，但称作者没有拿一堆事实吓唬人，这使该书很具有可读性。

　　6、《重塑美国医疗保健：平价医疗法案如何改善我们异常复杂、极不公平、惊人昂贵、效率极其低下、易于出错的系统》

　　盖茨对医疗保健特别感兴趣，本书关于美国极高的医保费用以及能够做出哪些改善。作者帮助制定了《可负担医保法案》，解释了为何旧体系需要改革。盖茨称：“美国医保体系到底有多复杂？该如何着手改革？你必须看看这本书。”(谷云)

源济

1. “Business Adventures” by John Brooks

This is Gates’ favourite business book of all-time. Although the collection of 12 “New Yorker” articles has been out-of-print since 1971, Gates says its lessons are as applicable now as ever.

“Even though Brooks wrote more than four decades ago,” Gates writes, “He offers sharp insights into timeless fundamentals of business, like the challenge of building a large organisation, hiring people with the right skills, and listening to customers’ feedback.”

2. “Stress Test” by Timothy F. Geithner

Geithner, a former United States Treasury Secretary, lays out the arguement that financial crises are inevitable. He writes the government has unique powers to reduce (though not extinguish) the problem, but there’s a lot of hard choices involved.

“Geithner paints a compelling human portrait of what it was like to be fighting a global financial meltdown while at the same time fighting critics inside and outside the Administration as well as his own severe guilt over his near-total absence from his family,” Gates says. “The politics of fighting financial crises will always be ugly. But it helps if the public knows a little more about the subject.”

3. “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“I’m especially interested in the central question that Goodwin raises: How does social change happen?” Gates writes. “Can it be driven by a single inspirational leader, or do other factors have to lay the groundwork first?”

Although Goodwin’s book tackles events of the early 1900s, Gates says it’s quite relevant today and brilliantly written.

4. “The Rosie Project: A Novel” by Graeme Simsion

This book is more of a “beach read” than any of the other suggestions.

Gates calls this novel about a genetics professor with Asperger’s Syndrome who goes looking for a wife a funny and profound book. Its message is about being comfortable with who you are and what you’re good at, and he says that he would laugh out loud when Melinda would read him passages. He started it at 11 pm one night and stayed up until 3 in the morning finishing it.

“I’m sending copies to several friends, he says.

5. “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert

“Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction events in the Earth’s history (think of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs), and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human activity is leading to the sixth,” Gates writes.

He describes “The Sixth Extinction” as a sobering read, but says Kolbert isn’t “beating you over the head” with facts, and that it’s quite readable.

6. “Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve Our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel

Ezekiel Emanuel helped design the Affordable Care Act, and explains why the old system needed reform.

“There’s no other book that takes the current situation and really educates you about how complex our health care system is and then lays out why they made certain approaches,” Gates says.