Read these during the 2025 holidays

Colder weather and, for many, freeing up some time for vacation make winter the perfect time of year to “catch up on reading,” according to billionaire and avid reader Bill Gates.

“There’s something about the quieter days of the holidays that make it easier to start reading a good book,” Gates wrote. blog post The latest annual list of holiday season book recommendations was released Tuesday.

Gates’ list of “recent favorites” covers a wide range of authors and genres, from a book by a Harvard psychologist that elaborates on the concept of “common knowledge” to a fictional work about an aging night janitor at an aquarium. The list also includes a media mogul’s latest memoir, a book Gates calls “a hopeful, fact-based overview” of the current climate crisis, and a political nonfiction bestseller about government regulation and American innovation.

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“Each of these books pulls back the curtain on how something important actually works: how people find purpose later in life, how we should think about climate change, how creative industries develop, how people communicate, and how America has lost the capacity to build great things and how it can get it back,” Gates wrote.

Here are five books Gates recommends reading this holiday season:

‘Extraordinarily Bright Creatures’ by Shelby Van Pelt

Told partly from the perspective of an octopus, Van Pelt’s 2022 novel meets Gates’s ultimate requirement for any work of fiction; “I want to read about interesting characters that help me see the world in a new way,” she wrote.

Gates, who turns 70 in October, wrote that he also connected with the book’s human protagonist: a 70-year-old widow named Tova, a janitor who works the night shift at the aquarium that houses Marcellus the octopus. The book follows the developing friendship between Tova and Marcellus, and Gates described it as a thought-provoking exploration of “relationships and aging,” particularly the struggle with loneliness and the search for meaning as one enters the final chapter of one’s life.

“Van Pelt’s story made me think about the difficulty of filling the days after stopping 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 data scientist at the University of Oxford who Gates has previously praised “surprisingly optimistic” analysis Summary of the ongoing fight against climate change. Gates wrote that his latest book, published in the UK on September 18 and scheduled for publication in the US in March 2026, is “one of the clearest explanations of the climate problem I have ever read.”

In “Clearing the Air,” Ritchie focuses on 50 questions about the climate crisis, such as whether renewable energy alternatives are too expensive to be effective or whether it is too late to limit global warming and prevent further climate disasters, and offers answers that are “realistic about the risks but grounded in data that shows real progress,” Gates says.

Like Ritchie, Gates praised the progress of the environmental movement. increased usage He wrote that solar and wind power are contributing to the popularity of electric vehicles and rejected the “doomsday outlook” of climate change that billionaire concerns could distract us from other areas of concern. separate blog post In October.

Gates has spent decades and billions of dollars fighting climate change. that lately received some criticism from scientists Because it suggests that some of the resources allocated to climate initiatives could be better used on issues such as prosperity and poverty.

“If you want a hopeful, fact-based overview of where climate solutions stand, this is a great choice,” Gates wrote of Ritchie’s book on Tuesday.

‘Who Knew’ by Barry Diller

Billionaire IAC and Expedia chairman Barry Diller, who is also the co-founder of Fox Broadcasting, published his memoir in May 2025. Although Gates considers Diller a longtime friend, he wrote that the media mogul’s book “nevertheless managed to surprise me and teach me a lot about him, his career, and the many industries he transformed.”

Diller was credited During his years as an entertainment executive, he invented concepts such as made-for-television movies and TV miniseries. Later, Diller “saw the potential of the internet early and was willing to bet on it when others did not”. Buying Expedia Gates stated that he left Microsoft in 2001 and turned IAC into one of the first media and internet holdings.

Gates wrote that Diller’s book was insightful about the emperor’s rise to corporate power and was “raw and honest” about Diller’s personal life. coming out as gay He was 83 years old earlier this year.

‘When Everybody Knows What Everybody Knows’ Steven Pinker

“Few people have explained the mysteries of human behavior better than Steven Pinker,” Gates wrote of the psychology professor at Harvard University who studies how people interact. Gates wrote that Pinker’s latest book, published Sept. 23, is “a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about how people communicate.”

In “When Everybody Knows What Everybody Knows,” Pinker explores how “common knowledge” shapes many aspects of our lives, including how we communicate and work with others. And as Gates writes: “Most people would benefit from understanding how common knowledge underpins every conversation we have,” and how to use that common understanding to collaborate more effectively with others.

“Although the subject itself is quite complex, the book is readable and practical and allowed me to see everyday social interactions in a new light,” Gates wrote.

‘Abundance’ by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Written by two journalists — Thompson a writer at The Atlantic and Klein a columnist at The New York Times and co-founder of Vox — “Prosperity” “offers a sharp look at why America is struggling to build anything and what needs to be done to fix it,” Gates wrote.

Klein and Thompson argue that some regulations, especially those supported by progressive politicians, have hindered U.S. progress in areas ranging from infrastructure and affordable housing to scientific breakthroughs. To fix the bottleneck, the authors propose an “abundance agenda” that would encourage development spending while reducing bureaucracy to help speed up the pace of new projects.

The book has its critics. On both sides of the political aisle, Gates wrote that he “doesn’t have all the answers.” But he wrote that the authors “asked the right questions” based on Gates’ experiences working with government agencies on large-scale global health and climate technology projects.

“I saw how the bottlenecks discussed in ‘Abundance’ impeded progress in global health, whether we were trying to improve seeds, design better toilets, or eradicate polio,” Gates wrote. “Sometimes the science itself is difficult. But often the logistics and execution are even more difficult.”

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