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50 Books Every Geek Should Read
Eric Dahl / InsideTech
“Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age,” Michael A. Hiltzik
Bill Gates once famously told Steve Jobs that “we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox, and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.” “Dealers of Lightning” tells the story of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center that developed the mouse, the laser printer, hypertext, Ethernet, and WYSIWYG word processing, before spectacularly letting other companies steal most of them away.
“The Cuckoo’s Egg,” Cliff Stoll
Stoll’s story begins with a $.75 accounting error and ends with the capture of a German hacker trying to penetrate U.S. military networks. Stoll’s hunt eventually involved the FBI, CIA, NSA, and lots of military computers still using default passwords.
“The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness,” Steven Levy
Almost more than you ever wanted to know about the design of the most successful digital music player on the planet.
“Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time,” Dava Sobel
Geeks will be geeks, even in the 1700s. John Harrison’s obsession with the problem of longitude led to great advances in time keeping and navigation. And it’s a fascinating story.


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sbxt185
about 1 month ago
6 comments
Nice List, I need to read up.
mitchster
about 1 month ago
6 comments
What an excellent list. Thank you. I scored pretty good too. Hmmm.
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usshelena
2 months ago
2 comments
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a must. Not a lot of useful, current techn advice but fun as hell!
TheDragonDo2009
2 months ago
10 comments
Anyone tried ExamForce.com owned by Adaptive Learning calims to be owner of the Exam Cram books. Well I bought into their three of their lifetime package which has no money back gaurantee. I have not used any of it so far but they claim that their education program is the best way to get certified in anything that is out there from CCNA, MCSE, Comptia A+, etc. It cost me a lot of dough. i don't what possessed me to go with the marketers pitch. Maybe I didn't care if my credit goes rock bottom at the time and I am sitll unemployed and semi-self-employed or at least lightly working on it.
tbbrick
2 months ago
2 comments
Remove Hitchhikers Guide, what a long, slow, miserable slog that was. Replace with Dune or 2001: A Space Odyssey.
PureEvil
5 months ago
196 comments
its not a book, but its awhole lot of comic books, but read transformers.
dodland
7 months ago
18 comments
Neuromancer was really cool, and weird as hell. Loved it!
Jmachado
7 months ago
10 comments
i study java as well.. in our class we are using a book called starting out with java and its written by dan gaddis. the book is explains things well but it keeps changing its programming style and it throws me off big time. im so confused..
danman1453
7 months ago
26 comments
i would like to suggest the book: "Physics of the Impossible", by Michio Kaku. Published by DoubleDay.
dandoocha
8 months ago
6 comments
Hi,
im new to java programming!
this is the 3rd semester (starts tomorrow!!)
and last semester i took data structures and algorithms and this semester
i have to write a game and im not good in java programming but i really llike it!! i know its a bit weird but what books could really help me get into it ( the programming i wanna program as if im writing my name) ????
what really works with me is practice soo????????
thanks for the great article!!!
Mentatstrategy
11 months ago
2 comments
I would like to add DUNE the the must reads
larry_blac
11 months ago
4 comments
peteyv, there are many excellent tutorial books for C++ available, and as it is not used en masse for development, many of them are availailable at super super discounted prices. You can get something like "master C++ in 21 days' (ha ha ha ha ha...let me know how that works for you, should you try it), but there are legit programming references such as the C++ Developers Bible, which are excellent syntatical and vocabulary references; however, if you are a true novice programmer, it would be wise to first 'get your head' around the concepts of OOA&P as the language and syntax will avail you nothing if you do not understand the fundamental concepts of OOP....you will be able to write code, but should anyone ever have to come behind you to perform modifications or updates to your code, they will likely seek you out and shoot your porch light out each year for the remainder of your life!!!! A word to the wise from an old SE...take it for what it is worth.
peteyv
12 months ago
2 comments
Hi. I'm a novice at programming. Can any of you suggest a book that will help me to get my head around the thinking process/logic that is necessary to really know what I'm doing? I feel like much of what I do is guess work or trial and error. My current challenge is C++. Thanks for any suggestions.