The Geek's Guide to Winter Reading

Friday, 17 December 2010 19:00

The Geek's Guide to Winter Reading

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Winter vacations needn’t mean a brainy break— but with homework like this, you’ll lose your remote and never want to leave your La-Z-Boy to go find it.


	*You Are Not a Gadget*	*The Emperor of All Maladies*	*X’ed Out*	*Zero History*	*Tree of Codes*
Author	Jaron Lanier	Siddhartha Mukherjee	Charles Burns	William Gibson	Jonathan Safran Foer
What	Dreadlocked Silicon Valley and virtual reality pioneer Lanier takes a look back at the results of Web 2.0 culture, from Wikipedia to unbridled commenting, arguing that the creative individual has taken the backseat to anonymity and crowd mentality on the internet.	Columbia oncologist’s deep-searching “biography of cancer”—all 4,000 years of its history.	Graphic novel hero of Black Hole fame’s first full-color book, the first in a possible series of three.	The newest sci-fi thriller from the speculative fiction icon who authored Neuromancer and All Tomorrow’s Parties.	Perpetual wunderkind creates a sculptural book–and an entirely new story—taking die-cut technique to Bruno Schulz’s 1934 novel The Street of Crocodiles.
Pro-geek	Early praise for the so-called manifesto’s decidedly un-manifesto-like, conversational tone and open-minded look at the positive and less desirable effects of current tech.	Mukherjee weaves patient stories with fascinating historical tidbits to humanize a potentially dry history-of-science tome.	A dual-world story with one line in the seventies, following Burroughs-obsessed art student Doug. The other takes place in an alien land (complete with its own alphabet) and features Doug’s alter-ego, Nitnit, and his mysterious diaper-clad guide.	This is the dude who invented cyberspace! He’s gone from imagining a Matrix-like future to envisioning an ambiguously realistic present obsessed with branding—sound familiar?	It’s a book as engrossing as a jigsaw puzzle, reinventing one of the author’s favorite books.
Anti-geek	Lanier thinks the internet has become “anti-intellectual” and has “killed the individual voice,” and isn’t such a fan of collectivist experiments like Linux.	Mukherjee’s one of those docs who can write, which means anthropromorphized illness— so this book’s occasionally warm and fuzzy.	It’s a fine line with Burns between weird and just plain creepy—witness said guide in diapers.	What with all the brand-centric plot, fashion is a big part of the book.	Anything this intricate is a statement, and this one’s defiantly anti-Kindle: It actually takes MORE time to read.