比尔盖茨：我的2020年夏季图书推荐

罗茜系列的三本小说都让人捧腹大笑。三部曲讲的是一名患有阿斯伯格综合症的遗传学教授寻求妻子（第一部）和组建家庭（第二和第三部）。归根结底，这个故事讲的是进入一个人的头脑和内心深处，然后发现这个被许多人视为怪胎的人，其实与其他人并没有什么不同。是梅琳达让我开始阅读这个系列，我很高兴她这么做了。

来源：比尔盖茨微信公众号（ID：gatesnotes）

I don’t read a lot of comics or graphic novels, but I’ve really enjoyed the few that I have picked up. The best ones combine amazing storytelling with striking visuals. In her memoir The Best We Could Do, for example, Thi Bui gains a new appreciation for what her parents—who survived the Vietnam War—went through. It’s a deeply personal book that explores what it means to be a parent and a refugee.

我这些日子参与的会议和讨论，大多与新冠肺炎及我们如何能遏制疫情有关。但我也经常被问到正在读什么书——原因要么是人们想了解更多关于大流行病的知识，要么是他们想要转移注意力。

So, in addition to the five new book reviews I always write for my summer book list, I included a number of other recommendations. I hope you find something that catches your interest.

所以，除了按惯例为夏季书单新写的五篇书评之外，我还附上了一些其他推荐。希望你能从中找到自己感兴趣的内容。

01 The Choice《拥抱可能》

By Dr. Edith Eva Eger | 伊迪丝·埃格尔 著

This book is partly a memoir and partly a guide to processing trauma. Eger was only sixteen years old when she and her family got sent to Auschwitz. After surviving unbelievable horrors, she moved to the United States and became a therapist. Her unique background gives her amazing insight, and I think many people will find comfort right now from her suggestions on how to handle difficult situations.

这本书一部分是作者回忆录，另一部分是如何处理创伤的指南。埃格尔在只有16岁时和家人一起被送到奥斯维辛集中营。在经历了难以想象的恐怖之后，她来到美国成为一名心理治疗师。她独特的背景给了她惊人的洞察力，我想现在很多人都会从她如何应对困境的建议中找到安慰。

我并不经常看漫画或连环画小说，但我真的很喜欢我读过的那几本。那些最好的作品将出色的故事和夺目的视觉结合在一起。例如在《尽力而为》这本回忆录中，作者裴氏对于她父母（越战幸存者）所经历的一切有了新的认识。这是一本非常具有个人色彩的书，探讨了同时作为父母和难民意味着什么。

By David Mitchell | 大卫·米切尔 著

This is the kind of novel you’ll think and talk about for a long time after you finish it. The plot is a bit hard to explain, because it involves six inter-related stories that take place centuries apart (including one I particularly loved about a young American doctor on a sailing ship in the South Pacific in the mid-1800s). But if you’re in the mood for a really compelling tale about the best and worst of humanity, I think you’ll find yourself as engrossed in it as I was.

这是那种你看完之后会长久思考和谈论的小说。小说的情节有点难以解释，因为它涉及六个相互关联的故事，时间相隔几个世纪（其中一个我特别喜欢，讲的是19世纪中叶，一个年轻美国医生在南太平洋一艘帆船上的故事）。但是，如果你有心情听一个关于人性至善与至恶的故事，我想你会和我一样沉浸其中。

03 The Ride of a Lifetime《一生的旅程》

By Bob Iger | 罗伯特·艾格 著

This is one of the best business books I’ve read in several years. Iger does a terrific job explaining what it’s really like to be the CEO of a large company. Whether you’re looking for business insights or just an entertaining read, I think anyone would enjoy his stories about overseeing Disney during one of the most transformative times in its history.

这是我这些年读过的最佳商业书籍之一。艾格极为出色地解释了在一家大公司做CEO到底意味着什么。无论你是想阅读商业见解，还是只想找本书消遣，我觉得你都会喜欢他执掌迪士尼的故事——当时这间公司正在经历自成立以来最激烈的转型期。

On the lighter side is Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened, by Allie Brosh. You will rip through it in three hours, tops. But you’ll wish it went on longer, because it’s funny and smart as hell. I must have read Melinda a dozen hilarious passages out loud.

By John M. Barry | 约翰·巴里 著

We’re living through an unprecedented time right now. But if you’re looking for a historical comparison, the 1918 influenza pandemic is as close as you’re going to get. Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history. Even though 1918 was a very different time from today, The Great Influenza is a good reminder that we’re still dealing with many of the same challenges.

我们正在经历一个前所未有的时刻。但如果你想找一段历史来对比，1918年的流感大流行是最接近的。关于这场人类历史上最致命的疫情，你需要知道的一切，巴里都会教给你。尽管1918年与今天截然不同，但《大流感》依旧是一个很好的提醒：我们仍在应对许多相同的挑战。

05 Good Economics for Hard Times《好的经济学》

By Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

阿比吉特·班纳吉、埃斯特·迪弗洛 著

Banerjee and Duflo won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences last year, and they’re two of the smartest economists working today. Fortunately for us, they’re also very good at making economics accessible to the average person. Their newest book takes on inequality and political divisions by focusing on policy debates that are at the forefront in wealthy countries like the United States.

艾丽·布罗什（Allie Brosh）的《我幼稚的时候好有范》读起来会轻松一些。你最多用三个小时就可以读完它。但你会希望读得更久一些，因为它非常有趣，又十分机智。我一定曾将其中许多搞笑的段落读给梅琳达听。

Other books worth reading

其他值得一读的书

The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness, by Andy Puddicombe. For years, I was a skeptic about meditation. Now I do it as often as I can—three times a week, if time allows. Andy’s book and the app he created, Headspace, are what made me a convert. Andy, a former Buddhist monk, offers lots of helpful metaphors to explain potentially tricky concepts in meditation. At a time when we all could use a few minutes to de-stress and re-focus each day, this is a great place to start.

《十分钟冥想》 | 安迪·普迪科姆 著

多年来，我一直对冥想抱持怀疑态度，如今我却尽可能地经常操练——如果时间允许，我会一周做三次。是安迪的书和手机应用 Headspace改变了我。安迪之前是一名佛教僧侣，他使用许多有帮助的比喻来解释冥想中不太好理解的概念。当我们都可以在每天花几分钟来减压和重新集中精力时，冥想是一个很好的开始。

Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer. If you’re looking to work on a new skill, you could do worse than learning to memorize things. Foer is a science writer who got interested in how memory works, and why some people seem to have an amazing ability to recall facts. He takes you inside the U.S. Memory Championship—yes, that’s a real thing—and introduces you to the techniques that, amazingly, allowed him to win the contest one year.

《与爱因斯坦月球漫步》 | 乔舒亚·福尔 著

Finally, I love the way that former NASA engineer Randall Munroe turns offbeat science lessons into super-engaging comics. The two books of his that I’ve read and highly recommend are What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, and XKCD Volume 0. I also have Randall’s latest book, How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems,on my bookshelf and hope to read it soon. If you’ve read it, let me know what you think in the comments.

The Martian, by Andy Weir. You may remember the movie from a few years ago, when Matt Damon—playing a botanist who’s been stranded on Mars—sets aside his fear and says, “I’m going to science the s*** out of this.” We’re doing the same thing with the novel coronavirus.

《火星救援》 | 安迪·威尔 著

你可能还记得几年前的这部电影，其中一个场景是马特·达蒙（片中饰演一个被困在火星上的植物学家）克服恐惧后说道：“我要用科学干出一条生路！”我们正在对新冠病毒做同样的事情。

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. The main character in this novel is living through a situation that now feels very relatable: He can’t leave the building he’s living in. But he’s not stuck there because of a disease; it’s 1922, and he’s a Russian count who’s serving a life sentence under house arrest in a hotel. I thought it was a fun, clever, and surprisingly upbeat story about making the best of your surroundings.

《莫斯科绅士》 | 埃默·托尔斯 著

小说主人公经历的处境令现在的人感同身受：他无法离开自己所居住的大楼。但他并不是因为疾病才被困在那里——故事发生在1922年，他是一位俄国伯爵，被判在一间酒店里服无期徒刑。我认为这是一个关于充分利用周围环境的有趣、聪明且非常乐观的故事。

The Rosie Trilogy, by Graeme Simsion. All three of the Rosie novels made me laugh out loud. They’re about a genetics professor with Asperger’s Syndrome who (in the first book) goes looking for a wife and then (in the second and third books) starts a family. Ultimately the story is about getting inside the mind and heart of someone a lot of people see as odd, and discovering that he isn’t really that different from anybody else. Melinda got me started on these books, and I’m glad she did.

最后，我喜欢前美国国家航空航天局工程师兰德尔·门罗的做法，他将离奇的科学课程变成了引人入胜的漫画。我读过他的两本书并强烈向你推荐：《What If？那些古怪又让人忧心的问题》和《XKCD：第0卷》。我的书架上还有兰德尔的最新著作《How To：如何不切实际地解决实际问题》，我希望能尽快阅读这本书。如果你已经读过这本书，请留言告诉我你的读后感。

Most of my conversations and meetings these days are about COVID-19 and how we can stem the tide. But I’m also often asked about what I am reading—either because people want to learn more about pandemics, or because they are looking for a distraction.

02 Cloud Atlas《云图》

04 The Great Influenza《大流感》

班纳吉和迪弗洛获得了去年的诺贝尔经济学奖，他们二位是当今最聪明的经济学家。对我们而言幸运的是，他们也非常善于让普通人了解经济学。他们的最新著作聚焦富裕国家（例如美国）处于风口浪尖的政策辩论，探讨不平等和政治分歧问题。

如果你想掌握一项新技能，那就应该学习如何记忆事情。福尔是一名科普作家，着迷于记忆如何工作，以及为什么一些人在回忆事情方面似乎拥有惊人的能力。他带你走进美国记忆锦标赛（没错，这比赛真实存在），并且向你介绍一些技巧——这些技巧使他神奇般在某一年的比赛中获胜。

罗茜三部曲 | 格雷姆·辛浦生 著