My brain is too filled with stuff like audience and discourse communities and emergence to be of much use, but I thought in the spirit of winter solstice and the free time that many of us might be looking foward to, I’d recommend some geeky type books that you can read yourself and/or purchase for geeks and non-geeks alike. Oh, and go vote for me and Phantom and everyone else in the Weblog Awards. I’ve given up hope of winning, but it’s fun to vote anyway.

Geeky Books for Everyone!

• Six Degrees of Separation–a good introduction to network theory. We actually used this book in a freshman writing class.
• Linked–another network theory book, but specific to the Internet. I liked this so much I’ve read it twice and am using it in my dissertation.
• Emergence–I’m in the middle of this one and I like it so far.
• Everything Bad is Good for You–Another Steven Johnson book. I like the message of this book. It makes me feel better about my Internet habits.
• The Search–a book all about search. There were parts of this that I didn’t like, but it’s still fascinating.
• The Cluetrain Manifesto–one of my favorite geeky books. There are a couple of other books that are similar to this that I’d love to read–maybe over the break.
• The Tipping Point–I have read this one twice two.

I think that’s it for now. One thing I’d like to do in the new year is to read a book a week the way Elizabeth does.

In case you’re wondering, I did this after I’d worked on my dissertation for two hours.