45+ of Your Favorite Books About the Evolution of Technology
This giveaway is sponsored by What Is Your Quest? by Anastasia Salter
What Is Your Quest? examines the future of electronic literature in a world where tablets and e-readers are becoming as common as printed books and where fans are blurring the distinction between reader and author. The construction of new ways of storytelling is already underway: it is happening on the edges of the mainstream gaming industry and in the spaces between media, on the foundations set by classic games.
One of the earliest models for this new way of telling stories was the adventure game, the kind of game centered on quests in which the characters must overcome obstacles and puzzles. After they fell out of fashion in the 1990s, fans made strenuous efforts to keep them alive and to create new games in the genre. Such activities highlight both the convergence of game and story and the collapsing distinction between reader and author. The interactions between storytellers and readers, between programmers and creators, and among fans turned world-builders are essential to the development of innovative ways of telling stories.
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Technology is an ever-shifting beast, and its evolution has been the topic of countless think pieces, works of nonfiction, and even novels. We asked for your favorites of the bunch- the most entertaining and thought-provoking books on the evolution of tech that you could think of- and here’s what you came up with!
Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky
Gutenberg the Geek by Jeff Jarvis
Connections by James Burke
It’s Complicated by Danah Boyd
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson
A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Wired for War by P. W. Singer
Turing’s Cathedral : the Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson
Amped by Daniel H Wilson
Geek Sublime by Vikram Chandra
Bomb by Steve Sheinkin
Prey by Michael Crichton
The Circle by Dave Eggers
Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
Feed M.T. Andersen
1001 Inventions that Changed the World by Jack Challoner
The Information by James Gleick
The Most Human Human by Brian Christian
Longitude by Dava Sobel
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Cyberia by Douglas Rushkoff
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell
Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers
Ambient Findability by Peter Morville
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture by Dana Gioia
The Artificial Ape by Timothy Taylor
Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology by Vivek Wadhwa and Farai Chideya
Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel by Julia Keller
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown
The Master Switch by Tim Wu
The Demon Under the Microscope by Thomas Hager
The Case for Books by Robert Darnton
Fire in the Valley by Michael Swaine and Paul Freiberger
Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick and Steve Wozniak
The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman and Andrew Postman
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
