Bill Gates has included two books by authors with deep connections to Vietnam in his recent list of five great titles he read this year.
Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, wrote a post on Gates Notes, his personal blog, earlier this week titled "5 amazing books I read this year."
The short list features two books by Vietnamese-American authors: The Best We Could Do, an illutrated memoir by Thi Bui and The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Of Bui's book, Gates writes: "This gorgeous graphic novel is a deeply personal memoir that explores what it means to be a parent and a refugee. The author's family fled Vietnam in 1978. After giving birth to her own child, she decides to learn more about her parents' experiences growing up in a country torn apart by foreign occupiers."
He then describes Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning hit: "Most of the books I've read and movies I've seen about the Vietnam War focused on the American perspective. Nguyen's award-winning novel offers much-needed insight into what it was like to be Vietnamese and caught between both sides. Despite how dark it is, The Sympathizer is a gripping story about a double agent and the trouble he gets himself into."
The other three books featured in the list are Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond; Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard; and Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil.
[Photo via Gates Notes]
