Bill Gates has shared his 2025 holiday reading list.
The Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist posted the list to his blog, Gates Notes, on Tuesday afternoon. “Each of these books pulls back the curtain on how something important really works: how people find purpose later in life, how we should think about climate change, how creative industries evolve, how humans communicate, and how America lost its capacity to build big things—and how to get it back,” he wrote.
Business executive Barry Diller’s memoir, Who Knew: My Story, made the list, with Gates writing, “I’ve known Barry for decades, but his memoir still surprised and taught me a lot.” Gates also selected Steven Pinker’s When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life, which he called “a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about how people communicate.”
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance was another selection; Gates called it “a sharp look at why America seems to struggle to build things and what it will take to fix that.” Gates also picked Hannah Ritchie’s Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers; Gates wrote of the book, which is slated for publication next March, “I’ve followed Hannah’s work at Our World in Data for years, and her new book is one of the clearest explanations of the climate challenge I’ve read.”
Gates picked one work of fiction for his list: Shelby Van Pelt’s novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, about which he wrote, “Van Pelt’s story made me think about the challenge of filling the days after you stop working—and what communities can do to help older people find purpose.”
“I hope you find something here that sparks your curiosity,” Gates wrote. “And I hope your holiday season is filled with happy loved ones, good food, and great conversation.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
