Apr 19, 2016
Your Hosts This Episode
Anna Ferri | Amanda Wanner | Matthew Murray
We discuss online reading vs book reading (“I just want to read the wiki article”), whether pop science is formulaic, if we read non-fiction to learn explicit facts or provoke thought generally, the impact of blog writing/reading on technology books, our audiobook preferences, anti-narratives (handbooks), edutainment, “There is some fiction in my non-fiction!,” lying by omission, hate reads, and more…
Technology (Non-Fiction) We Read (or kinda):
Recommended
- What is Code? by Paul Ford, long-form article from Bloomberg Magazine
- The Making of Crash Bandicoot by Andy Gavin (The series of blog posts Matthew read; for the deep nerds out there)
- The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
- Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell
- Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucen by Douglas Coupland (for a unique experience of technology reading)
- The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua
Other books read
- Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking) by Christian Rudder
- The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture edited by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson
- Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson
- The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? by Patrick Tucker
A few more “books” we mentioned
(or
that Meghan wanted us to mention since she couldn’t be
there)
- The Urban Biking Handbook: The DIY Guide to Building, Rebuilding, Tinkering with, and Repairing Your Bicycle for City Living by Charles Haine
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
- Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents by Lisa Gitelman
- How It Began: A Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Universe by Chris Impey (example of odd “padding” in non-fiction, but the science stuff is coooool)
- BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google by John Palfrey
- What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
Other/Links
- 7 Things You Should Read About Technology’s Role in Our Future
- Hatoful Boyfriend - The pigeon dating game
- Why so few violent video games? by Gregory Avery-Weir (short, funny, recommended)
- The World Future Society - produces The Futurist magazine for which Patrick Tucker is an editor…
- That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (an example of a book where the author really invites you to debate and disagree with the arguments in their work)
Check out our Pinterest board of all the Technology (non-fiction) books people in our club read (or tried to read).