Colder weather and, for many, some time off for the holidays makes winter a perfect time of year to “catch up on reading,” according to billionaire and avid reader Bill Gates.
“There’s something about the quieter days around the holidays that makes it easier to sit down with a good book,” Gates wrote in a blog post published on Tuesday that includes his latest annual list of holiday season book recommendations.
Gates’ list of “recent favorites” includes a wide variety of authors and genres, from a book by a Harvard psychologist that dissects the concept of “common knowledge” to a fictional work about an aging night janitor in an aquarium. The list also features a media mogul’s recent memoir, a book that Gates calls a “hopeful, fact-driven overview” of the current climate crisis, and a nonfiction political bestseller about government regulations and American innovation.
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“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,” wrote Gates.
Here are the five books Gates recommends reading during this holiday season:
‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ by Shelby Van Pelt
Told partially from the perspective of an octopus, Van Pelt’s 2022 novel meets Gates’ top condition for any work of fiction, he wrote: “I want to read about interesting characters who help me see the world in a new way.”
Gates, who turned 70 in October, also wrote that he related to the book’s human protagonist: a 70-year-old widow named Tova, a janitor working the night shift at the aquarium housing Marcellus the octopus. The book follows a developing friendship between Tova and Marcellus, and Gates referred to it as a thought-provoking exploration of “relationships and getting older,” particularly struggles with loneliness and the search for meaning as one enters the final chapter of their life.
“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,” wrote Gates, who has previously said that retirement “sounds awful.”
‘Clearing the Air’ by Hannah Ritchie
Hannah Ritchie is a University of Oxford data scientist who Gates has previously touted for her “surprisingly optimistic” analyses of the ongoing fight against climate change. Her latest book — which published in the U.K. on Sept. 18, and is set to publish in the U.S. in March 2026 — “is one of the clearest explanations of the climate challenge I’ve read,” Gates wrote.
In “Clearing the Air,” Ritchie focuses on 50 questions about the climate crisis — like, whether renewable energy alternatives are too expensive to be effective, or if it’s too late to limit global warming and avoid further climate disasters — offering answers that are “realistic about the risks but grounded in data that shows real progress,” Gates wrote.
Like Ritchie, Gates has touted the environmental movement’s progress — from increased use of solar and wind power to the popularity of electric vehicles — and rejected a “doomsday outlook” of climate change that the billionaire worries could distract us from other areas of concern, he wrote in a separate blog post in October.
Gates has spent decades, and billions of dollars, on combatting climate change. He recently drew some criticism from scientists for arguing that some of the resources earmarked for climate initiatives would be better used on issues like welfare and poverty.
“If you want a hopeful, fact-driven overview of where climate solutions stand, this is a great pick,” Gates wrote of Ritchie’s book on Tuesday.
‘Who Knew’ by Barry Diller
Barry Diller, the billionaire IAC and Expedia chairman who also co-founded Fox Broadcasting, published his memoir in May 2025. Even though Gates considers Diller a longtime friend, he wrote, the media mogul’s book “still managed to surprise and teach me a lot about him, his career, and the many industries he’s transformed.”
Diller is credited with inventing concepts like the made-for-television movie and TV miniseries during his years as an entertainment executive. Later, Diller “was early to see the internet’s potential and willing to bet on it when others weren’t,” including buying Expedia from Microsoft in 2001 and building IAC into one of the earliest media and internet conglomerates, Gates noted.
Gates considered Diller’s book to be insightful about the mogul’s rise to corporate power, he wrote — and “raw and honest” about Diller’s personal life, including a decision to come out as gay earlier this year at age 83.
‘When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows’ by Steven Pinker
“Few people explain the mysteries of human behavior better than Steven Pinker,” Gates wrote about the professor of psychology at Harvard University who studies how humans interact. Pinker’s latest book, which published on Sept. 23, “is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about how people communicate,” Gates wrote.
In “When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows,” Pinker explores how “common knowledge” shapes so many aspects of our lives, including how we communicate and work with others. And as Gates wrote: “Most people would benefit from understanding how common knowledge props up every conversation we have,” and how to used that shared understanding to more effectively collaborate with others.
“Although the topic itself is pretty complicated, the book is readable and practical, and it made me see everyday social interactions in a new light,” Gates wrote.
‘Abundance’ by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
Written by two journalists — Thompson is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and Klein is a columnist at The New York Times and co-founder of Vox — “Abundance” offers “a sharp look at why America seems to struggle to build things and what it will take to fix that,” wrote Gates.
Klein and Thompson argue that regulations, particularly some championed by progressive politicians, have stymied U.S. development in areas ranging from infrastructure and affordable housing to scientific breakthroughs. To fix the bottleneck, the writers propose an “abundance agenda” that would promote spending on development while cutting back on red tape to help accelerate the pace of new projects.
The book has critics on both sides of the political aisle, and Gates wrote that it “doesn’t have all the answers.” However, the writers “are asking the right questions” based on Gates’ own experiences working with government agencies on large-scale global health and climate technology projects, he wrote.
“I’ve seen how the bottlenecks discussed in ‘Abundance’ impede progress in global health — whether we’re trying to improve seeds, design better toilets, or eradicate polio,” Gates wrote. “Sometimes the science itself is hard. But often, the logistics and execution are even harder.”
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