On another book I would say Cialdini's "Influence: The psychology of persuasion" is a social science book analysing why people say yes - arguably the most important book a entrepreneur could read to help them understanding marketing and sales techniques. - Elias Bizannes via FriendFeed MT Plugin

i think Voyage of the Beagle is a classic. As are the autobiographies of Feynman. Not pure science but fascinating nevertheless - Jonathan Eisen

Wow, those look great! Did you have to go and add more to my reading list, however? A Short History of Nearly Everything's also a great read, if on a slightly different angle...noticed that in the comments and wanted to bump it. - Zach Beauvais via FriendFeed MT Plugin

thank you, Alex, this is a great list of books to share. RWW always brings us excellent materials to read. It's just great. "Programming the Universe" is really good. It is not only because of the discussion of quantum computing that makes it good. Moreover, the book has shown so many thoughts on understanding the fundamental of information and information processing, which could be very critical for the future of Internet computing. I have written two parts of review of this book before, which could be interesting if any one of you would like to watch a few content before diving into the book. <a href="http://yihongs-research.blogspot.com/2008...">Part 1</a>, and <a href="http://yihongs-research.blogspot.com/2008...">Part 2>/a> are here. Besides, "Linked" is indeed another great book that might also be in this list. Yihong - Yihong Ding via FriendFeed MT Plugin

I might sound a little bit old-fashioned but what about Derrida and Baudrillard. Their notions of "trace" and "simulacra" are very much related to what's going on in the internet these days: an interrelated network of elusive meanings, concepts, and tags, which represent and refer to one another. - Dmitry Paranyushkin via FriendFeed MT Plugin