Where has Bill Gates published his reading recommendations and how are they verified?
Executive summary
Bill Gates primarily publishes his reading recommendations on his personal blog Gates Notes, where he writes lists and individual book reviews [1], and he also shares picks via interviews and seasonal roundups that are picked up by mainstream outlets such as CNBC and Forbes [2] [3]. A parallel industry of aggregator sites and user-generated lists republishes and expands those lists—some claim to verify items by checking social posts or interviews (Good Books) while others are crowdsourced or uncurated (Goodreads, MostRecommended), so the strength of verification varies widely [4] [5] [6].
1. Where Gates himself posts his recommendations: Gates Notes and occasional media interviews
The primary and most authoritative venue for Bill Gates’s book recommendations is his own blog, Gates Notes, which hosts dedicated "books" pages and seasonal reading lists where he explains why he recommends particular titles [1] [7], and he also surfaces curated lists in long-form posts that media outlets frequently reprint or report on—examples include his summer and holiday recommendations covered by CNBC and Forbes [2] [3].
2. How mainstream media and interviews reproduce his lists
Major news and lifestyle outlets take Gates’s Gates Notes posts or interview quotes and publish distilled lists and commentary: CNBC ran a story on his 2024 summer picks sourced from his post [2], and Forbes covered his 2025 holiday list and its effects on sales figures [3]. These outlets typically cite Gates’s blog or quotes directly, making their lists reliable transcriptions of his public recommendations [2] [3].
3. Aggregators, fan lists and the claim of “verification”
A broad cottage industry compiles "all the books Bill Gates recommends"—sites like Good Books and MostRecommended publish extensive lists and claim verification methods; Good Books states editors validate suggestions by contacting the person, checking social media, or referencing interviews [4], while MostRecommended and similar sites aggregate hundreds of titles but do not provide consistent sourcing for each entry [6] [8]. In contrast, community platforms such as Goodreads host a Bill Gates list that is user-created and open to additions by anyone, which means those lists can be useful starting points but are not authoritative without cross-checking [5].
4. What counts as "verified" and the evidentiary trail that matters
Verification practices fall into three tiers in the available reporting: direct sourcing from Gates (posts on Gates Notes or direct interview quotes), third‑party reporting that cites those posts or quotes (CNBC, Forbes), and aggregator claims that may or may not show primary-source citations (Good Books claims outreach and social-media checks; many aggregator pages do not) [1] [2] [3] [4]. The most reliable evidence is the original Gates Notes post or a direct quoted interview; outlets that reproduce his lists and link back to those primary instances provide reasonable assurance [1] [2].
5. Impact, potential conflicts and limits of the public record
There is documented commercial impact when Gates endorses a book—a Gates tweet in 2012 is credited with triggering a sales surge for Steven Pinker’s book, an effect Forbes notes as a 2,000% increase and rapid climb on Amazon’s bestseller chart [3]—which explains why publishers, retailers and aggregator sites amplify and monetize such lists; some aggregators may therefore have implicit commercial incentives to expand or relist Gates’s selections [3] [6]. Reporting does not, however, provide an internal auditing standard from Gates Notes that publicly catalogs how every historical recommendation was recorded or timestamped, so comprehensive verification for every title on sprawling third‑party lists requires tracing back to the original Gates Notes entry, direct quote, or a contemporaneous interview [1] [4] [5].