Here is a collection of reading that I think informed me about what I do professionally, although quite a lot of it is tangential: (I've put most of this on four Amazon lists now, which are linked off my Cambridge Home Page) Language/Anthropology: Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, Robin Dunbar The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson http://www.amazon.com/Connected-Surprising-Power-Social-Networks/dp/0316036145 why disasters dont need incentive systems to get people to cooperate http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0670021075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314993154&sr=1-1 and a change in stats / "proof" requirement in a whole science http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-All-Maladies-Biography-Cancer/dp/1439107955 Economics: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Steven Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action Treasure Islands, Nicholas Shaxson Cyberpunk: Future Shock (tofler) or Shockwave Rider (brunner) Neuromancer (William Gibson) Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson or was it Thomas Pynchon) Islands in the Net, or Holy Fire (Bruce Sterling) Vurt, Jeff Noon (or any other of his books) The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Dalquist Science/Philosophy of: Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn I am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter The Emperor's New Mind (Penrose) The Road to Reality, by Roger Penrose Flatworld' book is Flatland by E A Abbott. A Brief History of Time (hawking) Goedel Escher Bach (or Anything by hofstadter/Dennett) The Minds Eye (H&D) The Selfish Gene (Dworkin) Objective Knowledge (Popper) The Feynman Lectures (3 vol) The Origins of Order, Stuart Kaufmann "What is Life ?", by E.Schrodinger (yes, the very same). Darwin, by Desmond&Moore Newton, Michael White Grammatical Man (J. Campbell) Computer Supported Collaborative Working: The Network Nation (Starr Roxanne Hiltz) The Cuckoo's Egg (stoll) version with Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter On Human Communication (Cherry) A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge,(isbn 1857988264) 'The Soul of a New Machine'? (Hilary(?) Kidder) - Think: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM by William Rodgers (Panther p-b), Mathematics: The Mathematical Experience ( Philip J. Davis & Reuben Hersh (penguin 1981) Surreal Numbers, (D.E. Knuth) Ian Stewart's books and Martin Gardner's books are all great fun. The Sciences of the Artificial (H. Simon) In the Age of the Smart Machine (S. Zuboff) The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World by A K Dewdney "Sphereland" (D. Burger). Labyrinths of Reason: Paradox, Puzzles and the Frailty of Knowledge, William Poundstone Chaos, and Beauty: Graphics from an Unseen World by C A Pickover (Sutton). "Chaos" by James Gleick (sp?) The Problems of Mathematics bY Ian Stewart Does God Play Dice? the New Mathematics of Chaos James Gleick Introduction to Logic by Patrick Suppes The Language of Logic by Samuel Guttenplan Information and the Internal Structure of the Universe. Tom Stonier The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge William Poundstone Crypto: Security Engineering, Ross Anderson Applied Cryptography, Bruce Schneier The Enigma, Alan Turing : the enigma / Andrew Hodges. The life of Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges Early British Computers by Simon Lavington (Manchester Univ Press p-b). The Computer and the Mind (P. Johnson-Laird) Wonderful Life (J Steve Gould) Paranoia and Consipiracy Theory (see cyberpunk) Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco) Snowcrash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and the Baroque Cycle (Neal Stephonson) The Decline and Fall of the British EMpire - Piers Brendon Supersurreality: "the exploits of the incomparable mulla nasrudin."- Sufi Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pil?) Alice in Wonderland&through the Lookinglass, esp. the Jonathan Miller 1969 TV Life - A User's Manual (Perec) Politics, and why are we so bad: Ripped&Torn, Amaranta Wright (Latin America) Shake Hands with the Devil, The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, (Rwanda) Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide, Gerard Prunier (Sudan) Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang, Jon Halliday (China) Palestine: Gregory Harms, Todd M. Ferry (Middle East) Stalingrad, Antony Beevor (Russia) My Fathers' Daughter, Hannah Pool (Eritrea) The Wisdom of Whores, Elizabeth Pisani My Booky Wook, Russell Brand Three Cups of Tea: by Greg Mortenson A few things I found helpful in understanding the problem of reduced collective intelligence 1. codifying irrational thought of course is essential: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0141033576 the naive idea that we are either rational selfish beings, or adversarial, or perhaps occasionally atruistic, is just too out of date to sustain - we have better models.. 2. Peer-to-peer politics This book is fun, if you are a post-occupy optimist: http://www.amazon.com/Future-Perfect-Case-Progress-Networked/dp/1594488207 [the much earlier wor by Mancur Olson is also quite illuminatng, but a bit dry: The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Collective-Action-printing-appendix/dp/0674537513/ 3. The evolution of language, from Dunbar, is useful when understanding group behaviour http://www.amazon.com/Grooming-Gossip-Evolution-Language-Dunbar/dp/0674363361 especially the bonding nature of gossip and the layers of trust... 4. The geography of thought, by richard nesbett http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Thought-Asians-Westerners-Differently/dp/0743255356/ is useful when trying to see how we ended up different in different continents! 5. Bateson's seminar work is fun, but perhaps not so constructive http://www.amazon.com/Steps-Ecology-Mind-Anthropology-Epistemology/dp/0226039056/ 6. Why media mess everything up: FLat Earth News, but Nick Davies http://www.amazon.com/Flat-Earth-News-Award-Winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ Everyone should read this before any meeting with Media 7. How people often do better in adversity: A Paradise built in hell: http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0143118072/ for optimism, again, but rare! cheers jon