Freedom to Tinker: Must-Read Books: Readers’ Choices:
Last week, I asked readers to name five must-read books on science and technology. The results are below. I included nominations from my comments section, from the comments over at Crooked Timber, and from any other blogs I spotted. This represents the consensus of about thirty people.
So I need to expand my reading list . . .
I think what happened on this was people chose their favorite books, without giving any thought to an audience other than themselves.
A few notes:
* The reviews of Guns, Germs, and Steel, a popular choice of contributors, are so uneven, I’m not sure what to make of it. It doesn’t make Professor Felten’s list, either. Likewise, Gödel, Escher, Bach . . .
* A Short History of Nearly Everything has to be good, given its author, and I think that’s what’s required here: a survey for generalists with pointers on where to learn more.
* To that end, The Evolution of Useful Things looks interesting as well.
This brings up an idea I have had periodically since the earky days of Amazon.com (nearly 10 years on): I’d like to have a subscription of books delivered to me, regularly (monthly or so) based on my interests. The various book clubs can’t offer that: they’re too narrow. It could come at various price points: $10/$20/$30 and let the member choose what of several books is required. And of course, this feeds into the collaborative filtering/recommendation engine.