Photo via Gates Notes
Photo via Gates Notes

It’s almost Memorial Day weekend, and hopefully the sunnier days and warmer weather are inspiring enough to slow down and take a book outside.

Continuing an ongoing tradition, avid reader and book fan Bill Gates has posted his “beach reads” picks on Gates Notes for this summer. “Each of these books made me think or laugh or, in some cases, do both,” he writes on his blog. “I hope you find something to your liking here.”

In true fashion, there are some brainier books that will make you think, including On Immunity and Should We Eat Meat?, but also some more fun ones, like Hyperbole and a Half. You will rip through it in three hours, tops,” writes Gates. “But you’ll wish it went on longer, because it’s funny and smart as hell. I must have interrupted Melinda a dozen times to read to her passages that made me laugh out loud.”

Here are Gates’ seven book picks below:

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins

What If? by Randall Munroe

XKCD by Randall Munroe

On Immunity by Eula Biss

How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff

Should We Eat Meat? by Vaclav Smil

Watch Gates talk about all his “beach read” recommendations in the YouTube video below:

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