Books like Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

01

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Walter Isaacson · Science

The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's history of the digital revolution, tracing the development of computers and the internet from Ada Lovelace's conceptualization of programming in the 1840s through the emergence of the modern internet, personal computer, and smartphone.

Both dig into technology history.

02

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick · Science

The Information traces the history of information — as a concept, a technology, and a way of understanding the universe — from the talking drums of West Africa through the telegraph, the printing press, the telephone, and into the digital age.

A kindred science read.

03

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Charles Petzold · Science

Code is Charles Petzold's explanation of how computers work, built from first principles.

A kindred science read.

04

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

David Epstein · Science

Range is David Epstein's argument against the ten-thousand-hours gospel.

Both dig into creativity.

05

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr · Science

The Shallows is Nicholas Carr's argument that the internet — and the way we habitually use it, skimming hyperlinked text, watching short videos, checking feeds — is reshaping the neural circuits responsible for deep reading and sustained concentration.

A kindred science read.

06

Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang · Science

Rest makes a case that most of what we think of as productive work is actually counterproductive when pushed past certain thresholds, and that deliberate, well-structured rest is not the opposite of work but a necessary component of it.

Both dig into creativity.

07

Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less

Leidy Klotz · Science

Subtract is built on a finding from Leidy Klotz's research at the University of Virginia: when people are asked to improve something, they default overwhelmingly to addition.

Both dig into creativity.

08

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering

Richard Hamming · Science

Richard Hamming's book is based on a course he taught at the Naval Postgraduate School in the late 1980s, after a long career at Bell Labs where he made foundational contributions to information theory and computer science — the Hamming distance, Hamming codes, and various contributions to numerical methods all bear his name.

Both dig into creativity.

09

Art as Experience

John Dewey · Philosophy

Art as Experience, published in 1934, is John Dewey's attempt to rescue aesthetics from the museum pedestal and return it to ordinary life.

Both dig into creativity.

10

Big Magic

Elizabeth Gilbert · Self-help

Big Magic is Elizabeth Gilbert's manifesto for living a creative life — not as a professional artistic career but as an orientation toward existence.

Both dig into creativity.

11

Bird by Bird

Anne Lamott · Self-help

Bird by Bird is Anne Lamott's guide to writing and the creative life, grown from a course she taught at UC Davis and developed over years of writing novels, essays, and journalism.

Both dig into creativity.

12

Chronicles: Volume One

Bob Dylan · Memoir

Chronicles: Volume One is the first installment of what Dylan announced as a multi-volume memoir, and it is one of the stranger and more rewarding books any major artist has written about their own formation.

Both dig into creativity.