Rodney

Hmm. A few.

Artificial Life, by Steven Levy. Old (early '90s), but still a great introduction for laymen like me. What a great story, well explained, about scientists who sought to simulate life in a computer environment. And then began to suspect that the algorithms they were developing the same algorithms used by life itself, and in the evolution of life forms. Life is math, and math is life.

West with the Night, by Beryl Markham. So beautiful it should be read aloud. It's a memoir about the coming of technology and the modern world to a very ancient land -- big game hunting, empires, expatriate nobility, airplanes, native cultures, rogue cheetahs, horse racing. Touches on so many questions of modern life without even trying to, while telling the huge story of one person's huge life. Aside from that parts of this book remind me a lot of the original Star Wars -- including the damned barroom scene. Only real.

900 Grandmothers, by R.A. Lafferty. Lafferty was a popular fantasy writer in the '60s. His stories are part fantasy, part humor, part satire, and part American folktale, full of grotesques and crazy computers and gods and weird conspiracies -- and wisdom. Nobody writes like him, before or since. Neil Gaiman, take a number.

The Bridge, by Hart Crane. Book of poetry from the 20s (still in print); Crane was a poet who tried to meld technology and city life into wild lyrical poems about the past, present, and future. He missed as often as he hit, but there are some great ones, too, images like subways of thought rocketing through "the interborough fissures of the mind." Lovely.

Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume II. I got my copy in college; we covered about 1/4 of it. I took it home and read the rest myself. The best review of 19th and early 20th century English literature and poetry there is; your doorway to other worlds, especially the romance poets. I memorized Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" because of this book.