Here are 100 books that The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. fans have personally recommended if you like
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O..
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Fantasy has always intrigued me since I read The Once and Future King in grade school. The number of fantasy books I’ve read number in the hundreds if not topping a thousand. In my twenties, you never saw me without a book in my hand, my nose pressed into the pages. If I wasn’t reading, I was dreaming up fantasy stories in my head, and this was long before I ever thought of writing my first book. I was a dreamer from birth and will die as one if I live to be 100 like my granny.
Stepping out of the theme of fantasy, I have to say I am a huge fan of science fiction, nearly as much as fantasy. One of the first books/series that springs to mind when speaking of this genre is the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois Mcmaster Bujold. I’d read a lot of Sci-Fi prior to this series, but mostly the Battletech books. If Battletech was my favorite fast-food books, then The Vorkosigan Saga was an 8-course meal at a 5-star restaurant. While it did not delve into the intricacies of space travel and technology to the point I felt like I was taking an advanced college course, she does create a living galaxy and intricate characters you can’t help but chase after like a starstruck fan seeing Mark Hamill at a Star Wars convention. While there is an overall theme to the large series, each book is unique to itself, so…
Cordelia Naismith is enjoying a baptism of fire. Her first mission is to captain a throwaway warship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an entire enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she is forced into an uneasy peace with her nemesis: Lord Aral Vorkosigan. Discovering that astrocartography is not the soundest training for a military leader, Cordelia rapidly finds herself the prisoner of the Barrayaran Captain Aral Vorkosigan, also known as 'The Butcher of Komarr'. But the notorious captain is not quite the beast Cordelia was expecting and a grudging respect develops between…
A test of leadership, loyalty, and legacy. Rylie Addison faces the greatest leadership challenge of her life. As climate change ravages the world, leaving millions displaced, Rylie is handpicked by the enigmatic Maja Garcia of Gaia Enterprises to govern Terra Blanca, an unprecedented man-made island community for climate refugees.
Growing up in what was becoming Silicon Valley, I escaped to San Francisco on weekends and, through it, fell in love with what other great cities have to offer. However, as an environmental writer and TV producer there in the 1980s, I became aware of how cities exploit the territories on which they rely. A winter sojourn in the most lovely, fragile, and ingenious of all towns—Venice—in 1985 focused my too-diffuse thought on what might otherwise seem a contradiction.The lagoon cityis, as John Ruskin said, the finest book humanity has ever written; I owe it my life and the book it inspired.
Like so much else Mumford wrote, this book is a volcano of provocative ideas that I found revelatory when I first read it and still do. Published in 1970, it summarizes much of Mumford’s thinking about the largely invisible and growing power structure he calls the Megamachine that threatens humanity and life on planet Earth.
His earlier writing, including The City in History (1961) and his essay The Natural History of Urbanization (1956), was formative for my own thinking about urban parasitism and aggression. Although a lover of cities, as am I, Mumford was well aware of the consequences of their depredations.
In this concluding volume of The Myth of the Machine, Mumford brings to a head his radical revisions of the stale popular conceptions of human and technological progress. Far from being an attack on science and technics, The Pentagon of Power seeks to establish a more organic social order based on technological resources. Index; photographs.
During my life, I’ve been told that I was not a true engineer, not a true banker, not a true CEO, not a true entrepreneur, not a true teacher… But one day an executive told me: “I want to work with you because you’re not a true consultant.” I then realized it is was a privilege not to be a true something! I like to call myself a corporate philosopher. Fellow of the BCG Henderson Institute, and co-founder of Cartoonbase, I split my time between the worlds of academia and business. I have published several other books on various subjects such as language, mathematics, humor, or fallacies.
Lee covers and connects two of my favorite topics, creativity, and technology. From the facts and truths of technology to the role models play in creativity (looking at how early philosophers suggested modeling thought), he argues that computers are not universal machines and that their power comes from their partnership with humans.
How humans and technology evolve together in a creative partnership.
In this book, Edward Ashford Lee makes a bold claim: that the creators of digital technology have an unsurpassed medium for creativity. Technology has advanced to the point where progress seems limited not by physical constraints but the human imagination. Writing for both literate technologists and numerate humanists, Lee makes a case for engineering—creating technology—as a deeply intellectual and fundamentally creative process. Explaining why digital technology has been so transformative and so liberating, Lee argues that the real power of technology stems from its partnership with humans.
I’ve read more than a hundred biographies over the years, mostly because I want to know what makes great people great. In doing so, I have sifted through some real crap along the way. I don’t typically read many stories about losers. Sad to say, and most people don’t want to hear it, but losers are a dime a dozen and unmotivating downers. My book list gives others the benefits of my 40-plus years of work in identifying books about brilliant, accomplished people written by first-rate historians and narrated by the ”cream of the crop.”
I loved this book first and foremost for the completeness of the research done including supplemental materials such as sketches, artwork, etc.
How he was able to gather so much information about the roamings, seemingly on a daily basis, of a man that lived 500 years ago is beyond me. I also thought the choice of Alfred Molina to narrate was brilliant as his Italian phrasing and enunciation made all the difference in the world.
In the end, I felt I knew da Vinci on a personal level, which surprised me.
The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is "a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it...Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life" (The New Yorker).
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson "deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo" (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve…
As a professional emergency and risk management practitioner, I’ve spent my career supporting and shaping emergency management policy and practice in every context from the village to global levels. What I’ve found to be most rewarding are those opportunities where I’ve been able to translate this knowledge and practice into training the next generation of emergency managers. The textbooks I’ve written, which include the first comprehensive book on emergency management (Introduction to Emergency Management, currently in its 7th edition) and the first book on homeland security in the United States (Introduction to Homeland Security, currently in its 6th Edition), are currently in use at hundreds of universities worldwide.
This is an older text, but a good one nonetheless.
Normal Accidents highlights the complexity behind major disasters. In the hours, days, and even years leading up to any major incident, there are often multiple opportunities to reduce the negative impacts or even avoid them altogether.
Focusing on technological hazards, Perrow highlights the fact that major incidents are rarely the result of a single point of failure. As risk managers, we need to understand the compounding nature of risk, and this book brings that lesson to life.
Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them. The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that…
The essential feature of democratic capitalism is creative destruction–put simply, constant innovation in the products and services we produce and how we produce them. My book gives a history of electricity and demonstrates the wide-angle lens we must use to fully understand this sort of innovation. The books I recommend here are among the absolute best in this regard. Importantly, in Cold War II, China is challenging America with state capitalism and creative destruction is at the heart of the battle. I have a Ph.D. in Economics and founded a consulting company that assessed new technologies in the energy sector for over 30 years.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the hot topic in the news today, but seldom do we see pundits try to explain it by drawing parallels to other communications or technological revolutions. Wheeler focuses, amongst others, on two paradigm-shifting revolutions: the invention of movable type (printing press) in the 1400s and the invention of the telegraph in the 1800s.
These two technologies upended the world and provided the foundation for massive changes brought forth by other events, including globalization, the Renaissance, scientific revolutions, and more. Wheeler does a great job of revealing the impact of these revolutions on all levels of society and provides a template for how to better understand the technological revolutions we are in the midst of today.
Network revolutions of the past have shaped the present and set the stage for the revolution we are experiencing today
In an era of seemingly instant change, it's easy to think that today's revolutions—in communications, business, and many areas of daily life—are unprecedented. Today's changes may be new and may be happening faster than ever before. But our ancestors at times were just as bewildered by rapid upheavals in what we now call “networks”—the physical links that bind any society together.
In this fascinating book, former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler brings to life the two great network revolutions of the…
The Rocket Scientist is a science-driven thriller about what might happen if microbes from Mars reached Earth.
When her Mars rover detects living microbes capable of absorbing carbon dioxide, Dr. Julie McCray believes she’s found the key to reversing Earth’s climate crisis.
But within hours, the mission is mysteriously shut…
Besides my studies of history and philosophy and my work as a theatre writer, I have been active in the global justice movement for a long time, opposing neoliberal assaults on social rights and the biosphere. However, I felt that neoliberalism was just the most recent phase of a much older system, which is, by its very structure, incompatible with the survival of humanity, as it is based on eternal growth and accumulation – an impossibility on a finite planet. So I set out to dig deeper and explore the fundamental institutions and structures of the Megamachine that we must overcome in order to allow for a decent human life in the future. We need a shift from an economy based on private profit to an economy for the common good, a shift from the paradigm of control, domination, and exploitation of nature to new forms of cooperation with complex living systems.
Mumford’s classic describes the emergence of hierarchical power systems that subjugate both humans and the more-than-human nature, from ancient Egypt to modern capitalism and the “Pentagon of Power”. The book takes on the technocratic worldview, inherent in modern capitalism, with a huge scope of knowledge and remarkable detail, combined with Mumford’s deep humanism. Mumford also coined the term “Megamachine” to which I refer in my own book.
Mumford explains the forces that have shaped technology since prehistoric times and shaped the modern world. He shows how tools developed because of significant parallel inventions in ritual, language, and social organization. “It is a stimulating volume, informed both with an enormous range of knowledge and empathetic spirit” (Eliot Fremont-Smith, New York Times). Index; photographs.
My father wanted to be an astrophysicist, and as a kid I caught his passion for the future from the many science fiction books he’d left throughout our house. As an adult, the advances in technology have brought the future envisioned in those books closer than ever. My passion for what awaits us led me to write The Price of Safety, which contains innovations that are right around the corner—and have already started to come true (which is freaky), between Elon Musk’s cranial implants to DNA tracking. The world we live in is becoming more like the world in my books. I hope we’re ready!
Peper’s novel is about how the technology available in the near future, which seems like a gift, can be used against you. (Sound familiar?)
In this instance, it is being used to potentially change humanity’s fate, and the main character has to decide what to do about it, if anything. The book stuck with me as it involves power, corruption, and the risks of relying too much on technology.
It’s a complex story, trying to encapsulate the threats our future holds, not only in terms of technology but the damage to our environment and how both could impact our survival.
There are elements of my novel in terms of having neural feeds, though the story explores how life would be experienced if you could capture every moment (not that I personally want to capture everything that happens in my own life).
A rising star at a preeminent political lobbying firm, Dag Calhoun represents the world's most powerful technology and energy executives. But when a close brush with death reveals that the influence he wields makes him a target, impossible cracks appear in his perfect, richly appointed life.
Like everyone else, Dag relies on his digital feed for everything-a feed that is as personal as it is pervasive, and may not be as private as it seems. As he struggles to make sense of the dark forces closing in on him, he discovers that activists are hijacking the feed to manipulate markets…
I grew up in London and became interested in history from multiple visits to the British Museum and the Museum of London, but it was on an undergraduate trip to Pompeii that I realized that I was capable of explaining archaeological remains. That realization led me back to Pompeii and then Rome, but also to tracking down the archaeology of Roman roads. Writing has become important to me, perhaps, because I’m dyslexic and I’ve had some struggles to write in the past. Yet, as a dyslexic professor, working at Macquarie University (Sydney), I think I can offer students and readers explanations of history that reflect my ongoing passion for studying the past.
This book has everything in it across 37 chapters: technology, landscapes, material culture, identity, and empire. It is one of the few volumes in this series of Companions and Handbooks from various publishers that takes an explicitly archaeological focus. It includes developments in the city of Rome over time, but broadens out to include Italy and Rome’s empire. The book benefits from drawing on the research of 37 leading experts, who present in concise sections key findings based on archaeological research – often from archaeological projects that they have led in the field.
A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic offers a diversity of perspectives to explore how differing approaches and methodologies can contribute to a greater understanding of the formation of the Roman Republic. * Brings together the experiences and ideas of archaeologists from around the world, with multiple backgrounds and areas of interest * Offers a vibrant exploration of the ways in which archaeological methods can be used to explore different elements of the Roman Republican period * Demonstrates that the Republic was not formed in a vacuum, but was influenced by non-Latin-speaking cultures from throughout the Mediterranean region…
Imperium is the most expensive structure ever created. Once an orbiting laboratory, it is now a space hotel for the fantastically wealthy. But as the station preps for its first group of space tourists, Dr. Chloe Bonilla, Imperium’s resident biophysicist, finds herself questioning whether babysitting a passel of space glampers…
Since first reading dystopian novels as a teenager, I’ve been fascinated by the new worlds that authors create and the fight that the protagonist endures to survive a hostile world. The difference from then to now is that it was previously a mostly male-dominated world. We like to see ourselves reflected in the protagonist, so I’ve been delighted to find so many strong and powerful women at the core of many contemporary dystopian novels. I find that they often include more thoughtful and complex characters with subtle storytelling.
I read this while on vacation, and though it was a wonderful trip, I kept thinking how much I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel room to continue reading.
The protagonist’s all-consuming job working for a tech company made me realize how much I wished I had used social media less. I loved how the book made us see how Mae’s job, at first exciting, took her to places she didn’t want to go.
In today’s online world, the completely interconnected one of this book is a cautionary tale.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - a dark, thrilling and unputdownable novel about our obsession with the internet
'Prepare to be addicted' Daily Mail
'A gripping and highly unsettling read' Sunday Times
'The Circle is 'Brave New World' for our brave new world... Fast, witty and troubling' Washington Post
When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Run out of a sprawling California campus, the Circle links users' personal emails,…
