欧美人文风情第265篇:一起来读一些好书吧

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String Theory by David Foster Wallace. You know, tennis is kind of amazing. David Foster Wallace 的《网球拍弦理论(暂译)》。你知道，网球有点令人赞叹。

There's interesting personalities¹ and incredible play. 其中包含有意思的选手与精采的球赛。

The more you know about it, the more you are impressed by those people playing at the top level. 你了解越多，你就越会赞叹那些在球界顶端的人。

It requires a lot of concentration. 那需要极高的专注力。

I loved him talking about his tennis career, and being slammed into the fence, and being a little bit modest about how he just, sort of, grinded it out. 我喜爱他谈论他自己的网球职涯，以及被逼到网球场边围篱的经验，还有以谦虚的态度说自己付出。

If you ever read one tennis book, this is probably the best. 如果你要读一本网球书，这本大概是最棒的一本。

Then a great company story, I would choose Shoe Dog by Phil Knight². 接着是一个很棒的公司故事，我会选择 Phil Knight 的《跑出全世界的人：NIKE 创办人菲尔 奈特梦想路上的勇气与初心》。

It's a really well-written story about Nike. 那是本关于 Nike 写得很好的故事。

It's amazingly honest, and the company almost didn't succeed. 它惊人地诚实，而且这个公司曾经濒临失败边缘。

It points out the unusual characteristics of the key people who helped the company succeed. 它指出那些帮助公司成功的关键人物拥有的独特个性。

I think there's tons of people who would find it an interesting story about how business really works and personnel management really works. 我想许多人会发现它是个关于公司真正如何运作的有趣故事，以及人员管理运作的真实情况。

A political book, Myth of the Strong Leader, by Archie Brown. 一本政治书，Archie Brown 的《强大领袖的神话(暂译)》。

It's a really good book because it looks at styles of leadership. 这是本非常好的书，因为它探讨了不同的领导风格。

I think he's right that there's a big danger, both in the corporate³ world and government,about this individual who embodies⁴ all things and he's just doing it largely himself. 我想他是正确的，在公司界及政府都存在着一大危机，便是有这么一个人代表一切，且大多时候都自己完成事情。

Leaders who don't listen can get more and more isolated⁵. Mandela in his own way was very collaborative, trying to draw people in. 不愿倾听的领导者会变得越来越孤僻。曼德拉自己的风格是非常合作取向的，他试图拉更多人进来。

He understood that he was gonna step down, and so he wanted to build up the capacity for his successor. 他知道自己有一天会卸任，因此他希望能为他的接班人培养能力。

A book called The Grid⁶ by Gretchen Bakke. 一本由 Gretchen Bakke 撰写的《电网(暂译)》。

She teaches us about the history of the grid, how it got built up piece by piece. 她教导我们供电网络的历史，关于它如何被一步一步地建立起来。

She talks about how it's becoming critical not only for reliability⁷, 她描述到，电网不仅对电力稳定性变得重要，

but to deal with these intermittent⁸ energy sources that are in very different locations than the actual uses of the power. 在处理间歇性能源方面也很关键，因为电力的来源可能和实际用电的地点相隔甚远。

So the grid's gonna have to be dramatically better in the future. 所以电网在未来必须要有巨幅改善。

The Gene⁹: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Siddhartha Mukherjee 的《基因：亲密历史(暂译)》。

He did such a good job on the history. He really tells you what the gene is. 他非常善于描述历史。他确实地告诉你基因是甚么。

There's three big domains¹⁰ that genetic¹¹ technology helps, and one is plants, the other is livestock¹², and the third is humans. 基因科技有助于三大领域，一是植物，另一个是牲畜，而第三是人类。

Some countries may be very liberal at letting parents edit genes¹³ related to beauty or intelligence. 有些国家可能对于让父母编辑有关美貌或智慧的基因非常开明。

It'll get people up to the point where they can participate in that debate, which will be fairly intense over the next 10 or 20 years. 这有天会走向全民皆可参与针对那的辩论，而这在未来的十或二十年会逐渐白热化。

Loved reading these books, and I hope a few of them are books that you'll enjoy. 我爱阅读这些书，我也希望你们会喜欢其中几本。

 

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