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Slashdot Asks: What Are Your Favorite Technology Books and Novels?

Posted by msmash on from the share-share-share dept.

It can be a nonfiction book, or a fictional narrative where technology plays a key role. I recently started to read 'The Rise of the Robots' by Martin Ford. It talks about how robots are threatening mass unemployment more than they ever did before. I also found Andrew Blum's 'Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet' quite insightful. I would like to read 'The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers'.

What are some of your favorite tech-centric books? And which book are you currently reading, or recently finished?

6 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Daemon by Daniel Suarez by fatnlazy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    along with his follow-up Freedom.

    --
    Yep, that's what I said.
  2. Nonfiction by cecurry · · Score: 5, Informative

    - Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder - What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff

  3. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson by ytene · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although his later works (such as Anathem) felt like they went off the edge of the world, Cryptonomicon combines a clever story, a prescient look at the emerging internet age, and some thoughtful nods to encryption schemes, all in a decent story. IMHO one of his best, and a good all-round sci-fi yarn...

  4. Richard Stallman by 101percent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stallman's Free Software, Free Society if you're too lazy to connect to gnu.org/philosophy. Say what you will, but rms is simply a legend and too important to overlook whether or not you agree or disagree with his views.

    1. Re:Richard Stallman by 101percent · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He is more consistently more correct than anyone else in technology. His early research with Sussman is also still relevant. And his code Emacs is still the most non-trivial ported FOSS software in existence. He's certainly going to be relevant for the next several decades.

  5. Re:Godel Escher Bach : hofstadter by ArmchairAstronomer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet another vote for Gödel, Escher & Bach. I was blown away when I read it. It is now my favorite non-fiction book by far. I go back and re-read at least one chapter every year just for fun.