Libro.fm Picks: For the Tech Enthusiast

Autonomous

“The best science fiction stretches our ingrained concepts of humanity and civilization into a series of questions that entrance and electrify, both by the nature of the questions and by the contextual reality the author has created. Annalee Newitz shows her mastery of the genre with Autonomous, which poses questions relating to artificial intelligence, consciousness, and ownership against the backdrop of Earth in 2144, where patent property law rules social order and indentured people and bots are the new lower class. Autonomous follows Jack, a drug pirate desperately trying to fix a deadly mistake she made while racing against Eliasz, a temperamental military agent, and Paladin, a newly conscious indentured military bot. Newitz forces you to empathize with every character. A true masterpiece.”

Charlotte Bruell, Literati Bookstore

An inspiring and deeply personal coming of age memoir from one of Silicon Valley’s youngest entrepreneurs—a second-generation Latino immigrant who taught himself how to code as a thirteen-year-old and went on to claim his share of the American dream.

As his parents watched their restaurant business collapse in the wake of the Great Recession,... Read more »

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the... Read more »

Black Buck

“Perhaps I have a different perspective on this book because I have a younger brother who is a Black, 20-something man in sales, but this book presents an evocative, honest, complex portrait of being a BIPOC person in a white-dominant workplace (albeit one that is high-powered, sales-driven, and New York City-based). This is a book that allows a reader to be seen if this is their experience, but also for a reader to learn about a different reality if this is not their own. Black Buck is a tightly woven, contemporary debut from an author to watch.”

BrocheAroe Fabian, River Dog Book Co.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein...

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick! • A work-from-home comedy where WFH meets WTF.
 
"An absurd, hilarious romp through the haunted house of late-stage capitalism."—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
 
Told entirely through clever and captivating Slack messages, this irresistible, relatable satire of both virtual work and... Read more »

SOON TO BE AN HBO® DOCUMENTARY FROM AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR JOHN MAGGIO • “An important—and deeply sobering—new book about cyberwarfare” (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times)

The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire,... Read more »

Uncanny Valley

“Like Joan Didion or Renata Adler, Ben Lerner or Sally Rooney, Anna Wiener writes with dead-on specificity, scalpel-sharp analysis, deep sensitivity, and an eye for the absurd. She headed west into the modern gold rush that is the tech boom and now returns with gleaming ingots of insight, weaving tales of a strange land where boy-CEOs ride ripsticks and hoover up your data. An essential and very human look at the forces shaping who we are and how we behave.”

Sam MacLaughlin, McNally Jackson Williamsburg

This program is read by the author.

An insider's account of Apple's creative process during the golden years of Steve Jobs.

Hundreds of millions of people use Apple products every day; several thousand work on Apple's campus in Cupertino, California; but only a handful sit at the drawing board. Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the...

Instant National Bestseller

A PBS NewsHour-New York Times Book Club Pick

"Excellent." —San Francisco Chronicle

Silicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world. Unless you're a woman.

It's time to break up the boys' club. Incisive, powerful, and a fierce rallying cry, Emily Chang shows us how to fix Silicon Valley’s toxic... Read more »

A thrilling and accessible tour of the cosmos

Our true origins are not just human, or even terrestrial, but in fact cosmic. Drawing on scientific breakthroughs and the current cross-pollination among geology, biology, astrophysics, and cosmology, Origins explains the soul-stirring leaps in our understanding of the cosmos. From the first image of...

All Systems Red is the first tense science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld and Ex Machina. All Systems Red by Martha Wells begins The Murderbot Diaries, a new science fiction action and adventure series that tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. It appeals to fans of... Read more »

What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and bestselling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.

But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth...

From a star theoretical physicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the cosmos—and a call for a more liberatory practice of science.

A Finalist for the 2022 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
A Finalist for the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology
A Smithsonian Magazine Best Science Book of...

In Native American DNA, Kim TallBear shows how DNA testing is a powerful—and problematic—scientific process that is useful in determining close biological relatives. But tribal membership is a legal category that has developed in dependence on certain social understandings and historical contexts, a set of concepts that entangles genetic... Read more »

National Bestseller * New York Times Editors’ Choice * Financial Times “Books to Read in 2022”

“A gripping account of PayPal’s origins and a vivid portrait of the geeks and contrarians who made its meteoric rise possible” (The Wall Street Journal)—including Elon Musk, Amy Rowe Klement, Peter Thiel, Julie Anderson, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, and... Read more »

Brief Answers to the Big Questions

“In his last message to the people of Earth, the late Stephen Hawking uses his prodigious intelligence and signature wit to explore the biggest questions we have. As A Brief History of Time painted a picture of the past, Brief Answers to Big Questions projects into the future. Told in an accessible and insightful way, Hawking’s farewell is a terrific read for all Earthlings interested in the fate of the universe.”

Aric, Bookshop Santa Cruz

Klara and the Sun

“Klara and the Sun is a parable, a warning, a neatly-crafted story that fits into an Artificial Friend-sized box, which—make no mistake—is not to say that it’s ordinary. Ishiguro explores the ethics of creating artificial intelligence that’s indistinguishable from humans, at least ideally. But Klara and her owner, Josie, are kindred spirits with vastly different fates. Is love still love when its object is replaceable, nay, disposable? Are some people more valuable than others; can grief ever be inappropriate? This seamless story examines our increasingly automated world, our obsession with usability, and the things that get left behind.”

Mary, Raven Book Store