The technology canon

Espen Andersen lists   the following as the core of the technology canon for people to have read.

My take on it

The first two are really interesting as they were recommended by our Introductory Programming Course in College. (Those and "How to Solve IT" by Polya). So its very interesting to see them turn up here

# Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid by Douglas Hofstadter
- Read It, Own it, Wonderful book. I should reread it as there is something to be learned in each reading

# Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
- Read It. Own more than one copy - particularly as the updates and later postscript are important. This book I've given to people. My mind melted a little when I first read it. I reread it regularly as there are some fundamentally important ideas in here, even the philosophical system is incomplete.

# How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand
On the too read list. Don't own a copy.

# A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
- Own and read. Great book. Trying to use elements of it in planning changes to our house.

# Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age by J. D. Bolter
- Never heard of it before today.

# The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
- Have an unread copy.

# The Mythical Man-month by Frederic Brooks
- Owned and read. Again "No Silver Bullet" was give to us in College so there was a trend there.

# Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
- Owned and unread. Interesting to see fiction on the list

# The Control Revolution by James Beniger
- Never heard of before today. That two off this list. And I consider myself reasonably well read and if I haven't read it at least I know its something I should read. This I haven't even had the pleasure of residual guilt for not having read the damn thing.


# Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation by James Utterback
Unread

# The Innovator's Solution by Clayton M. Christensen
Unread. I've only read parts of the innovators dilemma as well.

# Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett
Read and owned. Not sure it fully explains consciousness but worth the read as is most stuff by Dennett.

# The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler
Unread.

# The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World by Lawrence Lessig
Read. Good book.

Interestingly both "The Soul of the New Machine" and "Gödel, Escher, Bach" both won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction

Tomorrow to add my own books to the list. Starting with
"The Social Life of Information" by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid