Monthly Book Reading - Accepting Recommendations for July 2015
I would like to introduce a new idea in the /t/books tribe. It's called the Monthly Book Reading & Discussion. The goal is to list as many recommendations we can on a number of books within a specific niche in a 48 hour span. Once we have collected all the recommendations, a snap will be created with a list of all the recommended books and everyone will be able to up or down vote each of the books. The winner will be next month's read, in this case for the upcoming month of July.
Here is the breakdown of the steps involved:
- Recommendation phase (starts 19th ends 23nd of month)
- Voting phase (starts on 23nd until end of month)
- Winner announced (Last day of month)
- Reading of winning book (Start of the month until 25th of month)
- Discussion thread for winning book (25th of the month)
Niche Topic for July's Book Read:
Non-fiction: History of the Cyberworld / Cyberspace / Technology Sector:
Biography of a person or a book about a tech company, or something related.
Fiction: Fantasy
Book Recommendations for July 2015 (List supplied by /u/gladsdotter)
Weaving the Web; The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee
http://www.amazon.com/Weaving-Web-Original-Ultimate-Destiny/dp/006251587X/
The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage
http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteenth--line/dp/162040592X/
Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender, Rick Tetzeli
http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Steve-Jobs-Evolution-Visionary/dp/0385347405/
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson (focuses how women shaped technology)
http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Hackers-Geniuses-Created-Revolution/dp/147670869X/
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
http://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/0062301233/
Getting Involved:
These recommendations are just to get the list started, please post your recommendations in the comments below and we will compile a full list once the recommendation phase ends on the 22nd of this month. Please be sure to include the full title of the book as well as the author, if possible also include the amazon link to the book for easy browsing. Alright, lets get this show on the road!
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Edit: I have updated this post to include a fiction niche topic / genre. For the month of July it is Fantasy! I also updated the dates as we have delayed voting until tomorrow. Thanks /u/moderator for the reminder!
Join the Discussion
All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster - Joseph Menn
Recently watched the movie Downloaded about the rise and fall of Napster. Brought back so many memories of early internet as well as technologies that have now been improved upon that should thank Napster for starting the ball rolling.
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. Winner of the Pullitzer Prize and American Book Award. The story of a team at Data General creating a new computer in the early 80's. http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-A-New-Machine/dp/0316491977
Here are some of the science fiction books that are on my "to read" list:
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - the idea of a cybernetic world parallel to the real world.
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner - first time anyone came with the idea of a "computer worm".
The Truth Machine by James L. Halperin - story of a hypothetical future where people can no longer lie.
If I only have to choose one, it would be the first one I mentioned.
Either way, I just wanna say I'll try my hardest to go through whichever book wins!
As for a Fiction series I highly recommend Theives' World by... well a plethora of authors. Thieves' World is an anthology of Short Stories written by up and coming Fantasy writers in the 70's that all take place in the same world. Each author creates a character, and a storyline to that character, and each of that author's short stories is about that character. However, any author is allowed to use other author's characters provided that they do not kill off a character that is not their own. This leads to plenty of antics where authors will write other authors characters into horrible situations and leave their story off there, forcing the other author to write their way out of killing their character off. It is funny, inventive, and playful while also maintaining a continuous story about a town on the ass end of the Ranke empire.
Cool! Can't wait to see how the trial run goes :)
I reccomend Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I love of all Sanderson's works so far and Mistborn is one of his most popular series.
http://www.amazon.com/Mistborn-The-Final-Empire-Book/dp/0765350386
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Creativity Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012
Ed Catmull is a titan.