Tech books: 10 non-fiction stories worth reading - TechRepublic

Tech books: 10 non-fiction stories worth reading

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    Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date by Robert X. Cringely (HarperBusiness, 1992)

    Robert Cringely tells the history of personal computers and the people that made them.

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    The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Little, Brown, and Company, 2013)

    Brad Stone delivers insight into online shopping behemoth Amazon, including interviews with Amazon employees and founder Jeff Bezos’ family.

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    The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World by David Kirkpatrick (Simon & Schuster, 2010)

    Six years after being founded, Facebook already had a book chronicling it creation and subsequent success.

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    Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick (Little,Brown and Company, 2012)

    Learn the story of a guy who hacked the likes of Motorola and Pacific Bell.

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    Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton (Portfolio Hardcover, 2013)

    New York Times columnist Nick Bilton reconstructed the drama behind the founding of Twitter.

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    In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy (Simon & Schuster, 2011)

    Levy managed to get access to founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for this behind-the-scenes book on Google.

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    The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (Back Bay Books, 1981)

    Kidder recounted the story of a company trying to build a minicomputer during the intensity of the early days of computers. This Pulitzer Prize winning story is not just a great tech book but it’s often considered one of the greatest narrative nonfiction pieces ever written.

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    Return to the Little Kingdom: How Apple and Steve Jobs Changed the World by Michael Moritz (Overlook Hardcover, 2009)

    As an update on the 1984 book on Apple’s first decade as well as the back stories of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Return to the Little Kingdom was reissued in 2009 as a revised and expanded version.

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    Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum (Ecco, 2012)

    Wired’s Andrew Blum delves into the nitty-gritty of how the internet works.

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    Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh (Business Plus, 2013)

    This book focuses on the corporate culture of Zappos — an internet company known for its brilliant customer service.

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Erin Carson

Erin Carson is a Staff Reporter for CNET and a former Multimedia Editor for TechRepublic.