今年夏天，比尔•盖茨打算读这些书

    即使已经是世界首富了，比尔•盖茨依旧会经常挤出时间来读一本好书。

    据《福布斯》杂志披露，比尔•盖茨的净资产达到790亿美元。他本周公布了自己一年一度的暑期书单。在运营全球最大的慈善机构，并担任微软公司技术顾问的间隙，盖茨近几年还养成了一个习惯——让全世界知道他在读什么书。

    在其私人博客Gates Notes上，他以“海滩阅读物”为题，列出了今年暑期打算阅读的7本书。其中包括牛津大学进化生物学家理查德•道金斯所著的《现实的魔法》，以及美国国家图书奖得主欧拉•比斯所著的《免疫：接种》，其主题正好吻合比尔和梅琳达•盖茨基金会的致力目标之一——解决儿童疫苗接种问题。

    同时，盖茨也表示，他今年希望放松一下心情，其博客中写道：“今年，我想挑选一些更轻松的题材。这些书有的能让我思考，有的能引我发笑，有的则二者兼具，让我在笑中思考。”

    出于这样的目的，书单中包括一本根据著名漫画家艾莉•布洛什大受欢迎的博客改编的书——《夸张和一半》，盖茨形容这本书“幽默并聪明绝顶”。还有一本漫画书则是《XKCD》，内容摘自前NASA机器人专家兰德尔•门罗的同名网络漫画，包含大量与数学与科学相关的幽默元素。盖茨写道：“这种幽默，不见得所有人都喜欢，但我喜欢。”

    盖茨为今年暑期推荐的其他图书包括：门罗的另一本书《那些古怪又让人忧心的问题》；史上最畅销的统计学著作——达雷尔•霍夫的《怎么用统计数字撒谎》；以及全球环保思想领袖瓦茨拉夫•斯米尔的《我们应该吃肉吗？》。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    审校：任文科

    The richest man in the world still makes time to squeeze in a good book now and then.

    Bill Gates—he of the $79 billion net worth, per Forbes—released his annual summer reading list on Tuesday. In between running one of the world’s largest charities and serving as technological advisor to the company he co-founded, Microsoft, Gates has made a habit in recent years of letting the world know what he’s reading.

    Gates unveiled his new 7-book summer reading list in a post titled “Beach Reading (and more)” on his personal blog, Gates Notes. Included in this year’s list is The Magic of Reality, by Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. There’s also On Immunity, by Eula Biss, which fits in well with one of the goals of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by tackling the issue of childhood vaccinations.

    The billionaire techie also noted that he’s trying to lighten the mood a little bit this year. “This year I tried to pick a few more things that are on the lighter side. Each of these books made me think or laugh or, in some cases, do both,” Gates wrote in the blog post.

    In that vein, Gates includes a book adapted from Allie Brosh’s popular comic blog, Hyperbole and a Half, which Gates calls “funny and smart as hell.” Another item with a more graphic option is Randall Munroe’s XKCD, which draws from Munroe’s webcomic of the same name, which features a lot of mathematical and scientific humor. “It’s that kind of humor, which not everybody loves, but I do,” Gates writes.

    The rest of the books Gates recommends reading this summer are: What If?, also by Munroe; How to Lie With Statistics, by Darrell Huff; and, Should We Eat Meat?, by Vaclav Smil.