Computer
Science Reading & Video List
Wyomissing Area High School
Mr. Minich has not read all of the books on
this list nor has he watched all of the videos. However, those which he didn't
preview have been
recommended by other high school computer science teachers. A bold L indicates
that the book or movie can be found in our library collection.
Recommended Book
List - a few of the books are rated R, so
read only with parental approval
- Blown to Bits by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, & Harry Lewis
- Code:
The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles
Petzold
- The Pattern on the Stone by W. Daniel Hillis (summer reading asst?)
- Coders At Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming by Peter Seibel
- Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers by John MacCormick
- Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World by Christopher Steiner
- Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger & Kenneth Cukier
- Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, especially for teens, great up-to-date book, download for free
- Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum
- Gödel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter L
- Silicon
Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway by Cliff
Stoll
- Cuckoo's
Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by
Cliff Stoll
- ENIAC:
The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer by Scott
McCartney L
- Hackers:
Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Stephen Levy
- The
Mythical Man-Month
by Frederick Brooks
- Alan Turing: The Enigma The Centenary Edition by Andrew Hodges
- Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
by Scott Rosenberg
- Go
to: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards,
Scientists and Iconoclasts who were the Hero Programmers of the Software
Revolution by Steve Lohr
- The
Most Complex Machine: A Survey of Computers and Computing by David
J. Eck
- In
the Beginning Was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson L -
can be read online at http://www.spack.org/words/commandline.html
- Crypto by
Steven Levy L
- Extra
Life: Coming of Age in Cyberspace by David S Bennahum
- The
Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder L
- I am a Strange Loop
by Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Flatland:
A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott L
- In
Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery L
- The
Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by
Simon Singh
- Introduction
to Computing Systems: From Bits & Gates to C & Beyond by Patt and Patel
- How To Survive a Robot Uprising : Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion by Daniel H. Wilson
- The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work by
Daniel Hillis
- The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle
- The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing by Martin Davis
- Computer: A History of the Information Machine by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray
- Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors by Joel N. Shurkin
- Out of their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists by Dennis Shasha and Cathy Lazere
- Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky
- The Best Software Writing by Joel Spolsky
- User Interface Design for Programmers by Joel Spolsky
- Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
- Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham
- The New Turing Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science by A.K. Dewdney
- Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion by Feng-Hsiung Hsu
- Dr. Ecco's Cyberpuzzles: 36 Puzzles for Hackers and Other Mathematical Detectives by Dennis Elliott Shasha
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
- The Big U by Neal Stephenson
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (R Rated)
- Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (R Rated)
- The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce
Sterling
- Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh
- Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho by Jon Katz
- Neuromancer by William Gibson (R Rated)
- Count Zero by William Gibson (R Rated)
- Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date by Robert X Cringely
- Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds & David
Diamond
- Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as a Dream and Reality by David G. Stork
- The Road Ahead by Bill Gates
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Blade Runner by Scott Bukatman
- Net Force by Tom Clancy
- Prey by Michael Crichton
- Surely Your Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
- The Art of Computer Programming by Donald E. Knuth (classic 3-volume reference set) L
- Thing Explainer Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe
- List of Best Software Engineering books - includes several of books listed above
Recommended Video
List - some movies are rated R, so watch only
with parental approval
- There are online videos at http://www.cosmolearning.com/computer-science/documentaries?sort=views
- 507 Mechanical Movements by Henry Brown in 1868 - animations and index
- http://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory
- http://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory#p/u/94/YwqltwvPnkw
- Antitrust - Somewhat of a spoof on microsoft, but deals with some college
hacker types who finish school and go separate ways to make their fortunes.
One stays true to the open source movement, and one goes corporate with a
company called Synapse that closely resembles MS.
- Pirates of Silicon Valley - L story
of Jobs vs. Gates: the early years.
- Code Rush: A Year in the LIfe of a Silicon Valley Supernova (PBS Home Video)
- follows various members of Netscape (one is a woman) as they rush to get
out Mozilla (whose source code is to be made public)
- Breaking The Code - award winning play about Alan Turing.
- Startup.com - A documentary about "The rise and fall of an American
dream" during the heady days of the internet form "dot-com lift
to dot-bomb flameout". It focuses on two friends and the story of their
startup.
- Desk Set - Katherine Hepburn plays the head of a
research department at a TV network. Spencer Tracy plays an efficiency
expert from IBM planning
to replace her and her department (all women) with a new computer. There
may not be much computer science here, but it does star Katherine Hepburn & Spencer
Tracy.
- Biography: Bill Gates L
- Robots Rising
- Thinking Machines: The Creation of the Computer L
- Modern Marvels: The Internet -- Behind the Web
- 20th Century with Mike Wallace: Criminals in Cyberspace
- Investigative Reports: Caught in the Net
- Investigative Reports: E-Terror;
- Investigative Reports: The DOT.COM Roller Coaster;
- Triumph of the Nerds
- The Machine That Changed The World
- War Games
- The Net
- Hackers
- AI
- Bicentenial Man
- Sneekers
- The Matrix/Matrix Reloaded/Matrix Revolution
- Silent Running
- West World
- Forbidden Planet
- The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Colosus: The Forbin Project
- Maximum Surprize - can be viewed (1024 x 768 resolution) for free online
at www.publicstaticvoidmain.org/pixandvideos.html
- The KGB, the Computer, and Me - a version of the
book "The Cuckoo's
Egg"; Berkeley hippie/astrophysicist turns detective and gets mixed
up with the CIA and KGB
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Revolution OS - a documentary
on the Open Source software movement
- The Elegant Universe - A PBS series by the popular physicist Brian Green on the latest research into string theory, quantum theory, black holes, etc. You can watch it here online.
- Prof. Randy Pausch's inspirational "Last Lecture" on Sept. 18, 2007