Slashdot Mirror
Books that Changed Your Life?
Pubb asks: "I'm a Computer Science teacher at a school with an interesting tradition. Every year, the graduating student who has performed best in a particular subject area is given a book prize. Rather than give this particular student the usual book on Java or Linux, I would like to get something more impactful. I ask you, fellow Slashdot readers, to name the books that helped unleash your geek within. All I ask is that the book be reasonably available, even if it is no longer in print."
Right now, I'm reading Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. It's the history of the world as told by salt. Salt, it seems, was the petroleum of the ancient world. Venice, for example, was founded on considerable wealth generated mostly from salt. British salt was ballast in slave ships, making one third of the voyage to the New World and creating a entire economy in the Caribbean. The Romans were paid in salt, which they called 'sal'. It's from this that we get the modern word 'salary'. And a Roman salad was lettuce/veg with oil and salt.
In that same vein, you've got another hell of a book in Robert Wolke's What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained. It's basically excerpts from Wolke's "Food 101" column in the Washington Post, but they make for fascinating reading.
I've also got Alton's books. I'm Just Here for the Food is a great intro to the why's and how's of cooking.
If your student winners aren't into food, you might try the latest volume in Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, The Confusion. Although in case they haven't read Quicksilver, you might want to get that as well, and maybe give them both as a set. At a little over 1,700 pages, if they don't find a job right away, they'll have something to occupy their time this summer.
You could also give them a gift certficate from your local book seller. Maybe put it in a nice card that everyone can sign?
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
For a Programmer:
Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Baghavad Gita
The C Programming Language
Thinking Forth
microserfs by doug coupland is by far one of my favorite books of all time. i read it my sophomore year of high school and even now it still resonates strongly with me. actually, i really like almost all his books (particularly all families are psychotic, hey nostradamus!, and generation x).
i have a hard time expressing just how profound an effect doug coupland's work has had on me microserfs was the book that cemented my decision to major in c.s. for the first time in my life there was a book with characters who i could actually relate to. looking back now, a lot of the technological details seem a bit quaint, but it is still a really excellent read.
well, it might be a little far afield, but guns, germs and steel is one of the few books i've read that dramatically changed my point-of-view about a lot of things all at once. it basically sets out to figure out why the disparities between different cultures and races exist.
along the way, he draws from several diverse disciplines (botany, genetics, anthropology, archeology, etc), which is probably the most relevant facet of the book to the question -- it does a great job of showing how to use different approaches to solve problems.
-esme