Our Price: $13.97 | You Save: $5.98 (30%)   

2. "User Friendly"
by Illiad, J.D. Frazer
Yes, it's a cliche, but it's true enough to be worth repeating: "User Friendly" is to the open-source world what "Dilbert" is to swarming hives of Windows cubicles. Set in an ISP company that keeps getting bought and sold, the constant remains a team of cynical, hilarious techies. M.B.A.s and marketers drift in and out, as do CEOs, often making statements like, "I can't surf the Web. I think the Internet is broken." For anyone who's dealt with similar situations, "User Friendly" is the ultimate in-joke. Read more

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3. "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence"
by Ray Kurzweil
How much do we humans enjoy our current status as the most intelligent beings on earth? Enough to try to stop our own inventions from surpassing us in smarts? If so, we'd better pull the plug right now, because if Ray Kurzweil is right, we've only got until about 2020 before computers outpace the human brain in computational power. Kurzweil, artificial intelligence expert and author of "The Age of Intelligent Machines," shows that technological evolution moves at an exponential pace. Read more

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4. "The Whole Internet: The Next Generation"
by Kiersten Conner-Sax and Ed Krol
For a snapshot of something that is mutating as quickly as the Internet, "The Whole Internet: The Next Generation" exhibits remarkable comprehensiveness and accuracy. It's a good panoramic shot of Web sites, Usenet newsgroups, e-mail, mailing lists, chat software, electronic commerce, and the communities that have begun to emerge around all of these. This is the book to buy if you have a handle on certain aspects of the Internet experience--e-mail and Web surfing, for example--but want to learn what else the global network has to offer--say, Web banking or mailing-list management. Read more

Our Price: $19.96 | You Save: $4.99 (20%)   

5. "Being Digital"
by Nicholas Negroponte
As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for "Wired," Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of "Being Digital," which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for "Wired" about "being digital." Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. Read more

Our Price: $9.60 | You Save: $2.40 (20%)   

6. "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet"
by Katie Hafner
Considering that the history of the Internet is perhaps better documented internally than any other technological construct, it is remarkable how shadowy its origins have been to most people, including die-hard Net-denizens! At last, Hafner and Lyon have written a well-researched story of the origins of the Internet substantiated by extensive interviews with its creators who delve into many interesting details such as the controversy surrounding the adoption of our now beloved "@" sign as the separator of usernames and machine addresses. Essential reading for anyone interested in the past--and the future--of the Net specifically, and telecommunications generally. Read more

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7. "Coercion: Why We Listen to What 'They' Say"
by Douglas Rushkoff
In 1994's "Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace," Douglas Rushkoff extolled the democratic promise of the then-emergent Internet, but the once-optimistic author has grown a bit disillusioned with what the Net--and the rest of the world--has become. His exuberantly written, disturbing "Coercion" may induce paranoia in readers as it illuminates the countless ways marketing has insinuated itself not just into every aspect of Western culture but into our individual lives. Rushkoff opens with a series of pronouncements: "They say human beings use only ten percent of their brains.... They say Prozac alleviates depression." But "who, exactly, are 'they,'" he asks, and "why do we listen to them?" Read more

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8. "E-Topia: Urban Life, Jim--But Not As We Know It"
by William J. Mitchell
E-topias are defined as "cities that work smarter, not harder" in this analysis of cyberculture and urban life by William J. Mitchell, " E-Topia: Urban Life, Jim--But Not As We Know It." Consider it a sequel to his popular "City of Bits," where now he examines the urban infrastructure built around the global digital network and what it all means for our future day-to-day lives. To plan for smarter urban landscape dwellings, Mitchell calls for a change in how we architect and plan to architect virtual constructs within physical ones. Read more

Our Price: $15.75 | You Save: $6.75 (30%)   

9. "The Power of Identity: The Information Age--Economy, Society and Culture"
by Manuel Castells
In the second volume of his Information Age trilogy, Manuel Castells examines the threat posed to the nation-state by the rise of collective "resistance identities," which may over time develop into "project identities" with specific socially transformative goals in mind. His scope is broad, encompassing everything from Mexico's Zapatista movement to the rise of militias in the United States to broader antipatriarchal projects launched by feminists, gay communities, and environmental activists. Castell's dry academic style may be distancing to some readers; Benjamin R. Barber's "Jihad vs. McWorld" provides a similar argument (with equal intellectual rigor) in slightly more accessible prose. Read more

Our Price: $27.95    

10. "The Soul of a New Machine"
by Tracy Kidder
The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done--just look at today's news for reports of hard-driven, highly-motivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. His thoughtful, prescient book, "The Soul of a New Machine," tells stories of 35-year-old "veteran" engineers hiring recent college graduates and encouraging them to work harder and faster on complex and difficult projects, exploiting the youngsters' ignorance of normal scheduling processes while engendering a new kind of work ethic. Read more

Our Price: $10.00 | You Save: $2.50 (20%)   

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