It maybe he read them all already? Probably not, because if you read Austeen you probably can't spend all your holidays reading self motivation books.
Bill Gates is reading about how much college students learn in college instead of reading Kant and sipping wine by his fireplace and being a pretentious douche-bag.
Oh, the horror. What has the world come to.
EDIT: If it didn't occur to you, the definitions of real, classic and important are different for a random punk on an internet forum and Bill Gates. Also, Bill Gates doesn't seem like a guy who would read classics so that he can make blog posts about it.
I understand your point, but, I can't help recognising the irony given the key findings of the book mentioned.
I'd take those over some buzzword laden piece of Gladwell-lite that will be irrelevant in five years.
I don't know what you are responding to. I didn't claim there aren't old books which are useful. I am taking exception to the unfounded claim about old classics being the real books. Personally, I find Shakespeare trash. I would rather re-read "Lord of the flies" or "To kill a mockinbird" than subjecting myself to the Shakespearean torture.
> I'd take those over some buzzword laden piece of Gladwell-lite that will be irrelevant in five years.
Tell me how Bill Gates reading about college students not getting much out of education(and actually acting on it) is not better by eons to Bill Gates reading Hamlet. How does it matter no one will remember about "state of education in the 21st century" 100 years down the road?
The classics are classics for a reason: they are universal and timeless, and contain deep truths about the human condition that resonate forever. If Gates had read them early in life, maybe he would not have developed the predatory personality that characterized his business career and Microsoft in general?
What do you mean by anti-culture trend?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
Of all the definitions listed here, what on earth would anti-culture mean? This is the 20th century definition:
In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively.
If by culture, you mean the practices which have been followed for some time(won't that be tradition?), count me in as anti culture and tradition. "Something exists for a long time, hence it is useful" is bullshit. Culture and traditions are mostly dynamic, and people who think of a them as a static rather than ever changing snapshot of current human behavior are some of the biggest, bigoted assholes I have ever seen.
> culture, classic books, and so on, are the only way to build a better world.
Do you have anything other than your personal opinion to back up culture(whatever that means) or classic books building better world?
Cultivated as in "educated and refined"? And somehow who doesn't give a shit about Kant isn't educated or refined?
> It is something one person gains with time by broadening his familiarity with the best products of the human mind, like classic books, paintings, etc.
Expanding your horizons is good. Claiming reading obscure books is the way towards a better world is douchebaggery.
Search for whatever you want - I couldn't care less. But when you come out saying "I read Kant. Look at you simpletons and your not-real-books" then you deserve a slap. Let me re-iterate, no one is stopping you from reading whatever you want. But when you come out categorizing books as real and non-real based on a handful of old books you read, you are a douchebag.
> they are universal and timeless
I am neither universal nor timeless and I have a very limited amount of time which I have to invest accordingly. You carry on with your Hamlet, I will carry on with my "To Kill a mockingbird".
> and contain deep truths about the human condition that resonate forever
And are you assuming these so-called "deep truths" of yours are exclusively found in your 1000 year old obscure books? Care to list me a few of these deep truths?
> If Gates had read them early in life, maybe he would not have developed the predatory personality that characterized his business career and Microsoft in general?
Armchair theorizing much?
Your post just lost all credibility from that point on. What are "real" books? Can you define it? I'm pretty sure you can't, because there is no thing such as "real" books. Do they have to be pre-1900? Do they have to be written in dense prose or the author from the Victorian era? I just finished reading Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman for the second time and in all honesty is one of the most simply written books I have ever read, and yet is deep, thoughtful, fun and I can probably say is more enjoyable than some of those you call classics. Where do we draw the line?
I love this book! Its entertaining, interesting and inspiring.
Edit: thanks for the downvote, ...
Side note, Paul Graham is likely to be more interested in philosophy and "real books" than in those ego building books you find in airports.
But revealing, sure. Gates is a genius, but he is not in the cultural vanguard. He hired Ballmer, for chrissake.
Maybe the books won't be classics in 100 years, but the information in them will either still be relevant then or will have shaped what society looks like by then.
What an awful definition of reading. I do occasionally read books on this purely utilitarian basis, but reading is also done for other reasons, for example because you are completely engrossed in the story and just can't stop reading.
In that light it may seem like a silly-obvious thing to point out, but the statement I was replying to was implying a more narrow motivation for reading.
I think the key thing I takr from his reading list is reading about big current issues. At least he wants to fix things.
Either way, I'm sure he's read his share of the classics. The entire notion of "classics" is a fluid concept anyhow. The past, after all, doesn't have an exclusive monopoly on great and meaningful literary work. 100 years from now there will hopefully have been new texts added to our collective repertoire.