75 must-read geek books
Contributor Wally Bahny collected a list of fiction and nonfiction recommendations from TechRepublic members, writers, and editors.
- Atlas Shrugged
- The Lord of the Rings
- 2001 A Space Odyssey
- The War of the Worlds
- Neuromancer
- Snow Crash
- The Fountainhead
- The Soul of a New Machine
- Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
- Brave New World
- Frankenstein
- If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor
- Shadows over Innsmouth
- The Call of Cthulhu
- The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
- The Illustrated Man
- Does IT Matter?
- Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
- Microserfs
- Show-Stopper!
- The Cuckoo’s Egg
- The Google Story
- The Road Ahead
- Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
- iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon
- 1984
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- Foundation
- Harry Potter
- His Dark Materials
- The Day of the Triffids
- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
- The Time Machine
- 1632
- Fahrenheit 451
- Slaughterhouse-Five
- Watchmen
- Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
- Contact
- Dune
- I, Robot
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Lila
- Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the limits of the Possible
- Revelation Space
- Starship Troopers
- Where the Wild Things Are
- World War Z:An Oral History of the Zombie War
- The Geek Atlas
- Little, Big
- The City & The City
- Everything Bad is Good for You
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- The Cluetrain Manifesto
- Anathem
- Predictably Irrational
- Amber series
- Magician: Apprentice
- Magician: Master
- The Serpentwar Saga: Book I, Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Serpentwar Saga: Book II, Rise of a Merchant Prince
- The Serpentwar Saga: Book III, Rage of a Demon King
- The Serpentwar Saga: Book IV, Shards of a Broken Crown
- Code Complete
- The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
- Ender’s Game
- American Gods
- Ringworld
- The Forever War
- The Ghost Brigades
- The Sword of Shannara
- Hyperion
- A Brief History of Time
- The Dilbert Principle
Let us know which titles you would add — and which titles you would remove — from this reading list. Please think of this as a good starting point for discussion.
Amazon: E-books selling more than hardbacks
One interesting news item this week is that Amazon says it sold more e-books than hardbacks in the past three books. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Over the past month, the Seattle retailer sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books it sold, it said.” Does this news come close to reflecting your reading habits?