A Minimum Library For Retired Programmers

(plus all of Chaitin’s books)

• A Brief History of the Paradox – Sorensen
• A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM – Watson (Jr.)
• A Handbook of Software and Systems Engineering – Endres and Rombach
• A History of Computing Technology (2nd or current edition) – Williams
• And Tomorrow…the World -- Rex Malik [not reliable but fun]
• Applied Cryptography (2nd or current edition) – Schneier
• Artificial Intelligence: A Guide to Intelligent Systems (2nd or current edition) - Negnevitsky
• Artificial Life – Levy
• Artificial Life: An Overview – Langton (editor)
• Assemblers, Compilers, and Program Translation – Calingaert
• Automatic Data Processing [IBM 650 edition] – Brooks and Iverson
• Battle of Wits – Budiansky
• Before the Computer – Cortada (all Cortada books – he is very good)
• Being There – Clark (all of his books)
• Binding Time – Halpern
• Bit and the Pendulum, The - Siegfried
• Blind Man’s Bluff – Sontag and Drew Body of Secrets – Bamford (replaces “The Puzzle Palace”)
• Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology -- Emerson W. Pugh [best IBM history book]
• Code Book, The -- Singh
• Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park – Hinsley & Stripp
• Codebreakers, The (rev. 1996 ed.) – Kahn (everything by David Kahn)
• Coded Character Sets: History and Development – MacKenzie
• Computability and Unsolvability - Davis
• Computer Establishment, The -- Katherine Fishman [fun and I think reliable]
• Computer Pioneers - Lee
• Computer: A History of the Information Machine – Campbell-Kelly and Aspray
• Computers and People: Essays from the Profession - Holmes
• Counterfeiters, The, reprint edition with epilogue 1985 –  Kenner
• Dark Sun -- Rhodes
• Data in Business and Administrative Systems – Stamper
• Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age - Hiltzik
• Deep Black -- Burrows
• Design & Memory -- Huyck and Kremenak
• Discrete Mathematics with Applications - Epp
• Emperor’s Codes, The – Smith
• Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security (2005 edition) – van Tilborg
• Eudaemonic Pie, The - Bass
• Faster than Thought – Bowden
• Father, Son & Co. – Watson and Petre
• Feynman Lectures on Computation -- Feynman
• Fire in the Valley, rev. ed. -- Freiberger and Swaine
• Foundations and Fundamental Concepts of Mathematics - Eves
• Glass Bead Game, The --  Hesse
• Grammatical Man – Campbell
• Hackers, 2d ed. – Levy
• Historical Roots of Elementary Mathematics, The – Bunt, Jones, and Bedient
• IBM System/38 Technical Developments (1978 IBM General Systems Division) – ISBN – 0-933186-00-2
• IBM’s 360 and Early 370 Systems -- Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson, and John H. Palmer
• IBM’s Early Computers -- Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, Emerson W. Pugh
• Improbable Machine, The – Campbell
• Inside IBM - Maisonrouge
• Inside IBM: The Watson Years -- William W. Simmons [well worth reading – full of flavor]
• Introduction to Metamathematics - Kleene
• Invisible Weapon, The: Telecommunications and International Politics 1851-1945 -- Headrick
• Kahn on Codes – Kahn
• Labyrinths of Reason – Poundstone
• Language & Human Nature - Halpern
• Life With UNIX – Libes and Ressler
• Linked – Barabasi
• Little Kingdom, The - Moritz
• Lucky Strikes…Again - Lucky Man Who Broke Purple, The – Clarke (superseded by "The Story of Magic" and "The Emperor's Codes")
• Machines that Think – edited by Asimov, Warrick, and Greenberg
• Math Through the Ages: A Gentle History …, Expanded Edition – Berlinghoff and Gouvea
• Maverick and His Machine, The - Maney
• Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer -- Wilkes
• Micromillennium, The – Evans
• Mythical Man Month, The - Brooks
• New Hacker’s Dictionary, The (3rd or subsequent edition) – Raymond
• On the Internet – Dreyfus
• Paradoxes - Sainsbury
• Perspectives on the Computer Revolution, 2d ed. – Pylyshyn
• Portraits in Silicon -- Slater
• Privacy and Freedom – Westin
• Programmers and Managers – Kraft
• Programmers at Work – Lammers
• Quest for Certainty, The - Dewey
• Recursion Theory for Metamathematics - Smullyan
• Romance Division…a Different Side of IBM, The -- Deloca and Kalow
• SAGE Air Defense System, The – Jacobs
• Sciences of the Artificial, The, 3rd ed. – Simon
• Second Self, The – Turkle (20th anniversary edition)
• Selections from Cryptologia -- Deavours (ed.)
• Shockwave Rider, The - Brunner
• Story of Magic, The – Rowlett
• Silicon Dreams -- Lucky
• Silicon Valley Fever -- Rogers and Larsen
• Soul of a New Machine, The – Kidder
• Story of Telecommunications, The - Oslin
• Sun Never Sets on IBM, The -- Foy
• Symbols, Signals, and Noise -- Pierce
• System and Structure, 2nd ed. – Wilden (1st edition was better)
• Systemantics, 2d ed. – Gall (1st edition was better)
• Telephone Book, The --Boettinger
• Theories of Computability – Pippenger
• Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About -- Knuth
• Three Degrees Above Zero -- Bernstein
• Trouble with Computers, The – Landauer
• Turing and the Universal Machine -- Agar
• Two Cybernetic Frontiers – Brand
• Universal Computer, The – Davis
• What Computers Still Can’t Do – Dreyfus (earlier editions entitled What Computers Can’t Do)
• What Is Mathematics – Courant and Robbins, Revised by Stewart
• What Is Mathematics, Really? – Hersh
• Where Mathematics Comes From – Lakoff and Nunez
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet - Hafner
• Who Got Einstein's Office – Regis
• Wilderness of Mirrors – Grant
• Worldwide History of Telecommunications, The - Huurdeman
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -- Pirsig

NB – for a list of books on various aspects of computer history, see List of Books on The History of Computing