I didn't want to start a new thread, since we already have this one ...
Recently a friend lent me his copy of Neal Stephenson's
Anathem. I'm not very far into it yet, but so far it's excellent.
If you're interested in science fiction, mathematics, history, philosophy ... I could go on but there's so much in this tome I can't list it all. If you like Neal Stephenson (
Snow Crash,
The Diamond Age,
Cryptonomicon, the
Baroque Cycle, et al.) I think it likely that you would enjoy this book.
Right now
Anathem is only available in hardback, so you may want to wait for the paperback, e-book, borrow it from a library or friend (as I did) or something like that.
Stephenson also wrote a piece on operating systems back in 1999 (
In the Beginning... was the Command Line). Many of you may be familiar with this piece, but for those who aren't I recommend it. Here is a
link to the full text with comments, annotations, and critique by Garrett Birkel (written with Stephenson's permission) from 2004.
Tom