10 Great Tech Books

Veteran technology writer Steven Levy names his picks for the top 10 tech books in the July issue of IEEE Spectrum. The list was created to appeal to lay readers and engineers alike, taking into account the actual reading experience along with the impact and significance of the title. This is one top 10 list that engineers, programmers and technology professionals won’t want to miss. For the complete story go to the July issue of IEEE Spectrum at www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul08/6354

All these books are in the UT library catalog. Click on the title to see location and availability.

1. The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, Henry Petroski
2. Mirror Worlds; or, The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox…How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean, David Gelernter
3. A New Kind of Science, Stephen Wolfram
4. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter
5. Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, Paul Graham
6. The Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman
7. The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder
8. The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing, David Kahn
9. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Dava Sobel
10. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes

Books on the history of engineering

We have a new page that lists books about the history of Engineering. These books include subjects such as ancient Engineering, famous structures, history of machine tools, and specific time periods of Engineering design and thought. All of the books on the webpage are available at UT libraries – mostly Engineering and the PCL. My favorites are “Pushing the limits” and “Remaking the world”, both by Henry Petroski. Petroski explains current issues in Engineering with stories about historical events and structures, making for a compelling read.

25 Greatest Science Books of All Time – By the editors of DISCOVER magazine

Discover Magazine

1. and 2. The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) and The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin [tie]
3. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) by Isaac Newton (1687)
4. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (1632)
5. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) by Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)
6. Physica (Physics) by Aristotle (circa 330 B.C.)
7. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543)
8. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein (1916)
9. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
10. One Two Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow (1947)
11. The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)
12. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger (1944)
13. The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan (1973)
14. The Insect Societies by Edward O. Wilson (1971)
15. The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg (1977)
16. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
17. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (1981)
18. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1985)
19. The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1814)
20. The Feynman Lectures on Physics by* Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands (1963)
21. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey et al. (1948)
22. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (1983)
23. Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews (1943)
24. Micrographia by Robert Hooke (1665)
25. Gaia by James Lovelock (1979)

Read more about these titles at http://www.discover.com/issues/dec-06/features/25-greatest-science-books/?page=1