Reading List
I am of the opinion that college students’ educations are only really complete with a great deal of analytic and critical reading. (See https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/career-advice/carpe-careers/2025/09/08/case-pleasure-reading-grad-school-opinion for an opinion piece expanding on the value of reading for advanced students.) This page has a listing of some books that I have read (relatively) recently, and that I think are particularly excellent for this purpose. Naturally, these are best suited towards computer science or cybersecurity majors, but should be generally accessible (I have intentionally excluded textbooks). Categories and books are in no particular order, and the books included represent only my own opinions on a good book – in particular, this does not represent the opinions of any of my present or former employers.
For students doing a book report: you may choose any book on this list, or choose your own book that is in a similar vein. Some books may be easier than others to tie in to a technical course of study.
Big Tech and Social Media
- An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang
- Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams
- Disrupted, by Dan Lyons
- The Upstarts, by Brad Stone
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal, by Nick Bilton
- Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, by Mike Issac
- Chaos Monkeys, by Antonio Garcia Martinez
Academia and Higher Education
- The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University, by Kevin Roose
- Unwanted Advances, by Laura Kipnis
- After the Ivory Tower Falls, by Will Bunch
- The Tyranny of Metrics, by Jerry Z. Muller
- The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat, by Dave Tomar
- The Adjunct Underclass, by Herb Childress
- Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, by William Deresiewicz
- The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and why it Matters, by Tom Nichols
- The Fall of the Faculty, by Benjamin Ginsberg
- Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover
Theory, Mathematics, and Technical
- The Foundations of Mathematics, by Ian Stewart
- Seventeen Equations that Changed the World, by Ian Stewart
History and Society
- Where Men Win Glory, by Jon Krakauer
- Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by Jon Krakauer
- Patients at Risk: The Rise of the Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant in Healthcare, by Niran Al-Agba and Rebekah Bernard
- Five Days at Memorial, by Sheri Fink
- High Crimes, by Michael Kodas
- The System, by Jeff Benedict
- Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, by Jon Krakauer