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The 35 Best Books For Geeks & Nerds

December 10, 2015July 25, 2018 by

“What are the best Geek and Nerd books?” We looked at 15 articles and 212 different books in an attempt to answer that very question. Below you will find our results of the 35 best books for geeks and nerds of all-time. Click here to see the methodology used.

The Type of Intro Paragraph That can be Found in a “Best Books for Geeks/Nerds” listicle:

Have you ever seen and enjoyed a superhero movie? You’re probably a nerd! Have you ever spent a minor amount of time reading or learning about a subject that’s a single tier below mainstream? You’re a Geek! Can you name more than two characters from Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, or Star Trek? ‘Ring ring‘ “Hello who is it?” It’s you, you big freaking nerd!!! Did you grow up being harassed for your obsession with little liked subject matters? Get outta here weirdo, this list is for Geeks and nerds only!

What can be found in Nerd Book Lists

Broad definitions for what constitutes a “geek” or a “nerd”
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Computers

The 35 Top Books For Geeks & Nerds (In ascending Order)

Number of lists consulted: 15
Number of individual Books: 212 (See bottom of page for full list)

25.) Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Appeared On: 2 Lists
Learn more about title

11.) iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It by Steve Wozniak, Gina Smith

Appeared On: 3 Lists
Learn more about title

The 179 Other Nerd / Geek Books That Appear in Only a Single Article

1632
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Wrinkle in Time | Madeleine L’Engle
Absolutely Positively by Jayne Ann Krentz
Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, by Tim Harford
ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS DUNGEON MASTER’S GUIDE By Gary Gygax
ALEX THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, ALEX BELLOS
All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness
Alone Together, by Sherry Turkle
Amber series
American Gods
AN ASTRONAUT’S GUIDE TO LIFE ON EARTH, CHRIS HADFIELD
Anathem
ANOTHER GREAT DAY AT SEA, GEOFF DYER
Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
Armada by Ernest Cline
Astonishing X-Men by Marjorie Liu
Atlas Shrugged
Babel-17 by Samuel Delany
Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think,” Andy Oram
Beautiful Secret by Christina Lauren
Beowulf
BEYOND: EDWARD SNOWDEN
Bibliotopia: Or, Mr. Gilbar’s Book Of Books & Catch-All Of Literary Facts & Curiosities, Steven Gilbar
Books: A Memoir, Larry McMurtry
CAPITAL, THOMAS PIKETTY
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
Cat’s Cradle | Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Cathedral and the Bazaar,” Eric S. Raymond
Character Strengths & Virtues, by C. Peterson & M. Seligman
Childhood’s End | Arthur C. Clarke
Code: Version 2.0,” Lawrence Lessig
Command and Control, Eric Schlosser
CONNECTING NOTHING WITH SOMETHING
Contact
Copenhagen by Michael Frayn
COSMOS By Carl Sagan
Crypto,” Steven Levy
CUBED: A SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORKPLACE, NIKIL SAVAL
Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age,” Michael A. Hiltzik
Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software,” Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John M.
Vlissides
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability,” Steve Krug
End Malaria, edited by Michael Bungay Stanier
Ender’s Shadow, Orson Scott Card
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage (Alfred Lansing, 1959)
Everything Bad Is Good for You
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Fahrenheit 451
Fairy Tale Interrupted, Rosemary Terenzio
Flatland,” Edwin A. Abbott
Foundation
Getting Things Done,” David Allen
Getting to Plan B, John Mullins and Randy Komisar
Glyph by Percival Everett
Grendel (John Gardner, 1971)
Gut Feelings,” Gerd Gigerenzer
Hackers Authors: Steven Levy, Steven Levy
Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age,” Paul Graham
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire,” Jim Erickson
House of Leaves | Mark Z. Danielewski
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
I AM PILGRIM, TERRY HAYES
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison, 1967)
iCon,” Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon
If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor
In the Beginning was the Command Line,” Neal Stephenson
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, by David Eagleman
Into the Wild (John Krakauer, 1996)
Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo, 1939)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Kindred by Octavia Butler
LEAVING THE SEA, BEN MARCUS
Lila
Little, Big
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time,” Dava Sobel
Lord Loss by Darren Shan
Magician: Apprentice
Magician: Master
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner
Montano’s Malady by Enrique Vila-Matas
MR MERCEDES, STEPHEN KING
Old Man’s War Series by John Scalzi
On Intelligence,” Jeff Hawkins
On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore Author: Brian Bagnall
PARASITES LIKE US, ADAM JOHNSON
Phantoms On the Bookshelves, Jacques Bonnet
Predictably Irrational
Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
reaming in Code,” Scott Rosenberg
Revelation Space
Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made,” Andy Hertzfeld
Ringworld
Rise of the Billionaire by Ruth Cardello
ROCK STARS STOLE MY LIFE
Rosie Revere, Engineer, Andrea Beaty and David Roberts
Screwdrivered by Alice Clayton
Shadows Over Innsmouth
She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen
Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson
Skin Game (a novel of the Dresden Files), Jim Butcher
SKINJOB, BRUCE MCCABE
Slaughterhouse-Five
Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder
SOLO, WILLIAM BOYD
Starship Troopers
SURELY YOU’RE JOKING, MR. FEYNMAN! By Richard Feynman
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay By Michael Chabon
THE BEES, LALINE PAULL
The Big Sleep (or, really, any Raymond Chandler, any Mickey Spillane, any Dashiell Hammit…you get the idea)
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
The Call of Cthulhu
The Catcher in the Rye | J.D. Salinger
The City & The City
The Cluetrain Manifesto
The Code Book,” Simon Singh
The Compass of Pleasure, by David J. Linden
The Day of the Triffids
The Dilbert Principle
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
The Entire and the Rose, Kay Kenyon
The Evolution of Useful Things,” Henry Petroski
The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fford, 2001)
The Forever War
The Fountainhead
The Future of Ideas,” Lawrence Lessig
The Geek Atlas
The Ghost Brigades
THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, M.R. CAREY
The Hainish Cycle by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Illustrated Man
The Innovators, Walter Isaacson
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Long Tail,” Chris Anderson
The Magician’s Land, Lev Grossman
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, Allison Hoover Bartlett
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco, 1980)
The Non-Designer’s Design Book,” Robin Williams
The oldest D&D handbook you can get a hold of (Gary Gygax, 1974, for example)
THE PAPER TRAIL: AN UNEXPECTED HISTORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST INVENTION, ALEXANDER MONRO
The Peripheral, William Gibson
The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man’s Struggle With the Monthly Tide of the Books He’s Bought
and the Books He’s Been Meaning to Read, Nick Hornby
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master,” Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
The Progress Principle, by Teresa Amabile & Steven Kramer
The Road Ahead
The Second Coming of Steve Jobs Author: Alan Deutschman
The Serpentwar Saga: Book I
The Serpentwar Saga: Book II
The Serpentwar Saga: Book III
The Serpentwar Saga: Book IIII
The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr
The Shining by Stephen King
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,” Ray Kurzweil
The Sword of Shannara
The Theory of Attraction by Delphine Dryden
The Ultimate History of Video Games Author: Steven L. Kent
The Unwritten by Mike Carey & Peter Gross
THE VIOLENT CENTURY, LAVIE TIDHAR
The War of the Worlds
The Wisdom of Crowds,” James Surowiecki
Tog on Interface,” Bruce Tognazzini
Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better,” Gina Trapani
User Interface Design for Programmers,” Joel Spolsky
WHAT I’D SAY TO THE MARTIANS, JACK HANDEY
What is Life? by Erwin Schroedinger
What Technology Wants, by Kevin Kelly
Where Good Ideas Come From, by Steven Johnson
Where the Wild Things Are
Where Wizards Stay Up Late,” Hafner and Lyon
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
You by Austin Grossman
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The 35 Best Books For Geeks & Nerds

The Type of Intro Paragraph That can be Found in a “Best Books for Geeks/Nerds” listicle:

What can be found in Nerd Book Lists

The 35 Top Books For Geeks & Nerds (In ascending Order)

35.) Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction by Steve McConnell

34.) Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

33.) Does IT Matter? by Nicholas G. Carr

32.) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

31.) The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

30.) Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton

29.) His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

28.) If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

27.) Microserfs by Doug Coupland

26.) Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel by Robin Sloan

25.) Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

24.) Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft by G. Pascal Zachary

23.) The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll

22.) The Google Story by David Vise, Mark Malseed

21.) The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks

20.) The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness by Steven Levy

19.) The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

18.) The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

17.) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte

16.) Watchmen By Alan Moore

15.) Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams

14.) Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

13.) Ender’s Game By Orson Scott Card

12.) GÖDEL, ESCHER, BACH By Douglas Hofstadter

11.) iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It by Steve Wozniak, Gina Smith

10.) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

9.) 1984 by George Orwell

8.) A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

7.) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

6.) Dune By Frank Herbert

5.) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolken

4.) I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

3.) Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

2.) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

1.) Neuromancer by William Gibson

The 179 Other Nerd / Geek Books That Appear in Only a Single Article

Article Sources Arranged by Publish Date

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