Author: Tatiana Nezhinskaya
28 Jun. 2019

No Sorry For Time: Three Fictional Books of Billionaires

The value of certain things is measured by the time that we are willing to spend on them. Because time is the most important and irretrievable resource of our life. It seems that billionaires prefer to spend their lives on solving complex business problems, implementation of ambitious plans, and if employ time in reading then of particularly “expedient” specialized books. However, fatten fictional books were also worthy of strong and successful people's valuable time.

Many people are aware of the love of Ilon Mask — $22.5 billion capital owner — of John Tolkien's creative works. But one of the major engineers of our days spent his time for reading Isaac Asimov's fantastic trilogy — The Academy. According to Mask, the first three books (“The Academy”, “Academy and Empire”, “The Second Academy”) influenced his career having prompted him to think that humanity has a unique chance try to master other planets. This chance appeared for the first time in billions of years of life on our planet, and the second one may not occur, so one need to hurry to implement it.

From The Academy by Isaac Asimov: “Any dogma originally based on faith and feelings is a dangerous weapon because it can never be guaranteed that it would not turn against you. For a hundred years, we have been supporting ceremonies and myths that are becoming more respectable, conventional and... stiff in death. In a certain sense, we have already partially lost control of our own religion”.

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Jeff Bezos — an Amazon.com founder and $135 billion capital owner — calls The Remains of the Day, a touching novel, among his favorite books. This choice reveals Jeff Bezos as a subtle and, I won't be afraid of this, a romantic man. After all, the novel tells about the life of the English butler, who spent his whole life within the framework and was an impeccable servant, guardian of traditions, and only by the end of life, he allowed himself to feel, love and doubt. Interestingly that the author of one of the “most English” novels is Kazuo Ishiguro, a British writer of Japanese origin.

From The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro: “In a word, I concluded that everything can be very simply explained: I carried too much on shoulders. You may be surprised at how I might have not noticed such obvious misstep when assigning responsibilities. However, you know that such things are not uncommon if thinking long and hard about the same: the truth opens only when you are completely accidentally led to it by extraneous circumstances”.

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When referring to the name of Hillary Clinton, one should not even add that it is a well-known American politician. The book she read in her youth and read over several times has more than 800 pages and consists of two volumes — The Brothers Karamazov by F. Dostoevsky. This a choice is surprising: not all Russian-speaking readers are able to master Dostoevsky's novels, but understanding and appreciation of the fates of Russian sensualists from behind the ocean —this is a real rarity. However, it should be noted that despite all its complexity The Brothers Karamazov is a very dynamic book that constantly keeps the reader in suspense and intrigues.

From The Brothers Karamazov by Fedor Dostoevsky: “The main thing: do not belie your inner thoughts. One who belies inner thoughts and listens to his own lie appears not to distinguish any truth either in himself or around and therefore runs into disrespect to him or others”.

Translation: Global Translation Services 1+1​

 

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