[thecodont]

List follows.

[The_Reader_David]

A lot of full-on geeks don’t have time for fiction.

[El Sordo]

Cool.

I remember reading Neuromancer back in the early 90’s in a single night while waiting all night in a line, outside in freezing weather.

[thecodont]

Sci-Fi Classics 1, 2, 3

“Snow Crash,” Neal Stephenson
“Neuromancer,” William Gibson
“I, Robot,” Isaac Asimov
*
“Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Douglas Adams
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Philip K. Dick
“Ender’s Game,” Orson Scott Card
“The Time Machine,” H.G. Wells
*
“Microserfs,” Doug Coupland
“Flatland,” Edwin A. Abbott
“1984,” George Orwell
“Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley

Biographies

“iCon,” Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon
“iWoz,” Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith
“Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire,” Jim Erickson

Design

“The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,” Edward Tufte
“Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability,” Steve Krug
“The Non-Designer’s Design Book,” Robin Williams
“Tog on Interface,” Bruce Tognazzini
“User Interface Design for Programmers,” Joel Spolsky

Tech History 1, 2

“Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made,” Andy Hertzfeld
“The Soul of a New Machine,” Tracy Kidder
“Where Wizards Stay Up Late,” Hafner and Lyon
*
“Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age,” Michael A. Hiltzik
“The Cuckoo’s Egg,” Cliff Stoll
“The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness,” Steven Levy
“Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time,” Dava Sobel

Crypto

“The Code Book,” Simon Singh
“Cryptonomicon,” Neal Stephenson
“Crypto,” Steven Levy

Software Development

“The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master,” Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
“Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction,” Steve McConnell
“Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software,” Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John M. Vlissides
“Dreaming in Code,” Scott Rosenberg
“The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering,” Frederick P. Brooks
“Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think,” Andy Oram

Tech Philosophy 1, 2

“Cathedral and the Bazaar,” Eric S. Raymond
“The Long Tail,” Chris Anderson
“The Future of Ideas,” Lawrence Lessig
“On Intelligence,” Jeff Hawkins
*
“In the Beginning was the Command Line,” Neal Stephenson
“Code: Version 2.0,” Lawrence Lessig
“The Wisdom of Crowds,” James Surowiecki
“The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,” Ray Kurzweil

How STUFF Works

“Gödel, Escher, Bach,” Douglas Hofstadter
“Gut Feelings,” Gerd Gigerenzer
“A Brief History of Time,” Stephen Hawking
“Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age,” Paul Graham
“The Evolution of Useful Things,” Henry Petroski

Productivity

“Getting Things Done,” David Allen
“Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better,” Gina Trapani

Online Reading

“Flatland” – Available lots of places, since it’s now public domain. Here’s one of the better locations.
“Revolution in The Valley” – Began its life on folklore.org, where it continues to live on.
“In the Beginning Was the Command Line” – Stephenson’s essay’s widely available online, and continues to live at the site for one of his books.
“Code: Version 2.0” – Was written and edited in wiki format and is available under a Creative Commons license at codev2.cc.
“The Future of Ideas” – The other Lessig book on our list is similarly available under a Creative Commons license.
“The Cathedral and the Bazarr” – Raymond’s essay on open source and hacker culture can be found on catb.org.

[proxy_user]

The ultimate books for a programmer?

Ulysses, followed by Finnegan’s Wake.

Well, you are supposed to be clever and well-educated....

[SpaceBar]

The fact that Atlas Shrugged isn't in there explains a lot about the editorial content seen on /. The tech community seems to be topheavy with lefties and other types disconnected from reality (unless it's in a game).

[Vince Ferrer]

Here is a book that would be #2 on my list:

Apollo: The Race to the Moon by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox

Geeks who run wild for ten years and land a man on the frickin' moon. Best book on the subject.

[yarddog]

I would start with The Iliad and The Odyssey, oh I thought that said Greeks.

[Cicero]

Well, I’ve read 10 out of 11 of the SF books (all but Microserfs).

But I’ll pass on most of the rest.

[LibFreeOrDie]

“The Inmates Are Running The Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy And How To Restore The Sanity” - Alan Cooper

“The Frozen Keyboard: Living With Bad Software” - Boris Beizer

[Dr. Sivana]

Where's Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools?

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Bookmarking!

[onedoug]

“An Introduction to the Physics and Chemistry of Petroleum”, Robert Richard Francis Kinghorn

[CodeToad]

Not a single one of those books would I recommend for the professional. Besides, real geeks don’t have time for fiction, they are busy creating reality.

[thefactor]

Ender’s Game is the best book ever.

[SFConservative]

How about "Fudge Factor"?

[Billthedrill]

Drop Snow Crash. It's head candy. Read The Diamond Age by the same author, Neal Stephenson. Because it turns out that the real relationship between humans and computers isn't what we think that it is.

[ShadowAce]

[paulycy]

The Psychology of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

[antiRepublicrat]

Need to add: Every geek should read Secrets and Lies by Bruce Schneier to know how cryptography works, and then to be a geek of any standing you also need Applied Cryptography, also by Bruce Schneier

Then pick at least any two of Andrew Tanenbaum's books, such as Computer Networks or Operating Systems: Design and Implementation.

[kalee]

ping