End 2020 on a good note, read 5 books recommended by Bill Gates, this holiday season

Vision: Virus outbreak

In 1981, Dean Koontz wrote a novel titled 'The Eyes of Darkness'. In the book, Koontz mentions a fictional biological weapon Wuhan-400, nearly 40 years before the coronavirus outbreak occurred.

'The Eyes of Darkness' is a story about a mother who discovers her son Danny is being kept in a military facility after being infected with a man-made microorganism called ‘Wuhan-400’. While Twitter went into a little bit of tizzy, that’s where the similarity ends. Unlike the book’s virus, which has a 100 per cent fatality rate, the real world covid-40 has a fatality rate that ranges between two per cent and 14 per cent, depending on several factors.

(Image: Amazon)

Vision: Electric submarines

Jules Verne is considered one of the most forward thinking authors of the 19th century and has predicted numerous things in his most famous book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, which was published in 1870. Verne not only predicted electric submarines 90 years before they were invented, he also imagined them just as they turned out — long and cylindrical. Verne’s submarine called Nautilus also included a main cabin, navigational devices, a dining room, and barometer.

(Image: barnesandnoble.com)

Vision: Mass surveillance

Orwell’s book focuses on topics we are all too familiar with today: Censorship, propaganda, surveillance, and oppressive governments. It was written nearly 70 years ago. In the book, Orwell predicted mass surveillance and police helicopters. Much of what the British author imagined has come true, including facial recognition, speech to text conversion, music made by artificial intelligence, and, of course, the concept of ‘Big Brother’ watching your every move.

(Image: Amazon)

Vision: Mars has two moons

This all-time favourite book follows a man named Gulliver as he stops at different worlds, those occupied by giants, another by little humans, and one of the most interesting, the island of Laputa. Laputa, in the book, is a floating world filled with scientists. Swift writes about how Gulliver and Laputian astronomers noted that Mars has two moons in its orbit. Today we know this claim to be true, that Mars indeed does have two moons. But Swift wrote 'Gulliver’s Travels' in 1726, nearly 150 years before Phobos and Deimos — the two moons of Mars — were discovered in 1877.

Vision: Organ Transplants

Written in 1818, Shelley’s novel is often considered one of the first science-fiction novels. At that time, science was just beginning to explore the concept of bringing dead tissue back to life using electricity. In Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein', the doctor is able to keep an organ alive outside of a body to be transplanted into a new body. To say this was ahead of its time is an understatement. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century (1954) that the first organ transplant became a reality.