Today my summer order from Amazon arrived

Here’s the list of books included I want to read this summer.

Absolute MUST READ and/or recommendations by friends:

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier

One of the godfathers of “virtual reality”… I’ve worked with Jaron with Chromatophoria at the CyberTheatre in Brussels in the nineties. I have always been following his work since then. This year, he released this book that has been recommended to me by many friends. The New York Times wrote in its review earlier this year: “It is necessary reading for anyone interested in how the Web and the software we use every day are reshaping culture and the marketplace.”

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back by Douglas Rushkoff

I had the chance to collaborate with Douglas in the MuLiMob project a couple of years ago and he was so kind to participate to the Mobile Trends 2020 document I curated earlier this year (nearly 80k views by now!). Douglas has always been a great inspiration for me, he wrote a couple of interesting books the last decade. Life INc. is another MUST READ that has been receiving a lot of attention lately.

Biology Is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life by Robert H. Carlson

Tipped by friend Yuri van Geest (@vangeest), I’m really looking forward to start reading this one: this book should give me a deeper insight on (r)evolutions in bioengineering and a progress update on singularity.

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century by Henry Jenkins

Convergence Culture (where old and new media collide) by the same author I read a couple of years ago so I definately didn’t want to miss this update focused on media education. From the back cover: “This report aims to shift the conversation about the “digital divide” from questions about access to technology to questions about access to opportunities for involvement in participatory culture and how to provide all young people with the chance to develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed.”

Then there are ones I didn’t had the chance yet to read and that were still recommended by friend Gerd Leonhard (@gleonhard), so I ordered them too:

The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

And this one I was just curious to read:

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky

And a practical one to close with:

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo

And now for the toughest part… Which book to start first

Feel free to suggest similar interest books you absolutely want recommend and share – for my post-summer order