As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for Wired, Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of Being Digital, which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for Wired about "being digital."

Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality (VR), holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.

A collection of 30 essays, interviews, and free-form monologues on a host of wired subjects, Clicking In reflects both the scope and unevenness of the Internet, while offering similar pleasures of serendipitous discovery as you leaf through the offerings. The essays range from a straightforward primer on computer viruses, to medical discussions of brain/computer interfaces, abstruse musings on the paradoxes of virtual reality, and reflections on life in a world where the things of greatest value have no physical existence. It's an unabashedly intellectual book with a brittle digirati edge, but one in which many readers will find contributions that inform and stimulate.

A classic look into cracker subculture, Cyberpunk tells the stories of notorious hackers Kevin Mitnick, Robert T. Morris, and the Chaos Computer Club. Like Where Wizards Stay Up Late, the book Hafner co-wrote on the origins of the Internet, Cyberpunk is informative, well-written, and entertaining. The story of Morris, who became infamous for unleashing a crippling worm that brought the Internet to a grinding standstill, is still as relevant and ominous today as it was at the time. The space devoted to Mitnick is a must-read companion to either Takedown or The Fugitive Game. Many of the stories surrounding the Dark Side Hacker, such as the story of his Norad break-in, are called into question in Cyberpunk, making this book a good launching pad for many different accounts of the Mitnick legend. The portrait of the two members of the Chaos Computer Club is a memorable look into the minds of the younger generation of computer hackers. Before you check out any book of this genre, read Cyberpunk.

What will be the most significant economic factor to shape our future? Renowned Economist writer Frances Cairncross proclaims that it's the "death of distance" caused by the communications revolution. This book suggests that everything will change within the next century, from our relationships with people to our home and work lives to our government. Because the Internet removes all geographic boundaries, Cairncross asserts that people and businesses will relocate wherever they want, making it difficult for countries to enforce tax laws. Governments will be under extreme pressure to offer the best public services to attract businesses and individuals. Cairncross also predicts that people's reading and writing skills will improve because they'll have to communicate effectively using electronic means.

From August 1995 through April 1996, John Brockman recorded conversations with 36 of the most important architects and developers of today's cyberspace. Those conversations have been condensed into this book, as Brockman's "digerati" discuss their work, their visions, and each other. We readers get the joy of listening to these fascinating people speak--sometimes from their well-polished soapboxes and sometimes with their guards down. Many of these people we know from their writings, but there's a fresh rhythm and excitement to their words when they come from their mouths instead of their word processors.

Interface Culture examines the state of computing from the perspective of its 29-year-old author, Steven Johnson, co-founder and editor of the Web 'zine Feed (www.feedmag.com) and one of the "50 people who matter most on the Internet," according to Newsweek magazine. Johnson asserts that understanding how we interface with computers is the way to know cyberculture. The author never gets much more sophisticated than hyperlinks and software agents. His primary interest is in isolating the interface as a subject of study; a metaphor for the information age, he says, as the novels of Dickens were metaphors for 19th century industrial society. Here he confuses the medium with the message, not uncommon in the Age of McLuhan. In any case, his discussion of the interface seemed curiously truncated and backward-looking.

David Porter has brought together the works of 15 scholars to examine the Internet and the new culture, or cultures, growing there. As cyberspace creates new models of "place," the 15 essays in this collection explore the concept of virtual communities; how people interact with "virtual bodies"; how the use of language and rhetoric in cyberspace differs from other uses; and Net politics. There's a wide range of perspectives here and anyone who's thought about cyberculture will find plenty of opinions to support and dispute--and some new questions to ponder.

Stefik's basic premise is simple: the way we think about the Internet -- the mental symbols we use to represent its nature and purpose -- will determine what the Internet will become. He's gathered the writings of some of the most insightful and creative writers dealing with our growing global infrastructure to examine the ways we consider the Net and what that means for our future. The essays are as readable as they are thought-provoking, and Stefik's surrounding commentaries bind the diverse works into a whole.

Too many cyberspace pundits fail to deliver constructive ideas on how to deal with issues of safety, privacy, and censorship online. Protecting Yourself Online, penned by members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), is a splendid exception that makes good on its claim to be the definitive resource for practical solutions to these problems.

The authors cover a lot of territory in a concise, direct manner. Among the topics are free expression and online censorship, reconciling individual liberties with community standards, secure communications and online commerce, and the protection of intellectual property online. One excellent chapter deals with netiquette, spam, hackers, computer viruses, and flames. A major focus is placed on recognizing online spoofs and scams, whether it be an e-mail advertisement that is too good to be true or people who aren't who they say they are.

In her first book, respected digerati opinion-maker Esther Dyson looks at computing and the Internet and how they will profoundly change our business and social lives in a fully wired world. The wisdom of Dyson's view is that, while the digital age will be vastly different from the one we know, it will be governed by the same forces that have always shaped social organizations. She has given lots of thought to how those forces will interact with specific new technologies and does a convincing job of predicting the shape of things to come in considerable detail.

Dyson is the founder of the influential PC Forum conference and her company Edventure Holdings publishes the respected Release 1.0 newsletter, from which her book adapts its title. She is also chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lobbyist organization that seeks to present a pro-Internet voice in Washington.

The gap between the technological mentality and the mystical outlook may not be as great as it seems. Erik Davis looks at modern information technology--and much previous technology--to reveal how much of it has roots in spiritual attitudes. He succeeds in showing the spiritual side of what some may see as cold, technological thought.

Writings on the year 2000 (Y2K) problem, or the "millennium bug" as some would have it, have been limited to highly technical analyses of specific problems and their solutions. Very little attention has been paid to how the Y2K problem will affect the lives of average people and everyday systems, even though many prognosticators believe this is where the problem will have the largest impact. In Time Bomb 2000: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You, Edward and Jennifer Yourdon do just that by presenting a collection of scenarios ranging from the best we can hope for to the worst cases. Each chapter investigates a different area of computing and the possible effects of this disaster on each. From home PCs to world financial networks, the Yourdons explore a variety of "domino effects" that January 1, 2000, could trigger and the necessary time, effort, and cost to fix the aftermath. The impacts on real life could be anywhere between annoying and catastrophic, and the authors examine each extreme. Each chapter contains "fallback advice," describing the amount of time required to repair these systems. (The authors liken Y2K to a hurricane--it only lasts a day, but requires a year of cleanup.)

An engrossing and complex exploration of the effects of telecommunications technologies on gender relations and identity. Goes far beyond the usual obvious assertions and cliches. Not a traditional text but rather a series of intellectual provocations, this book moves between fascinating accounts of the modern interface of technology and desire--from busy cyberlabs to the electronic solitude of the Internet, from phone sex to "virtual cross-dressers." Stone examines the myriad ways modern technology is challenging traditional notions of gender identity.

Many have predicted what emerging technology will mean for society. Michael Dertouzos, an Internet pioneer and Head of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, has been among the few who've been pretty much right so far. Now he reaches into the coming century to paint a compelling, rationally developed picture of what's ahead. Dertouzos' fluid freedom from the pollyanna-ism or paranoia that afflict so many of his contemporaries brings to his visions the ring of both conviction and plausibility--and excitement as well. His crystal explanations and fascinating examples are irresistible. The result is a book as enjoyable as it is important.

A level-headed analysis of the nature of community in the online world, and the effect of the online world on real-world communities. Contains some of the best discussions I have encountered about the substantive qualitative value of projects such as the National Public Telecomputing Network, which, to my mind, could serve the same balancing service for the future of the Internet that National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service have served for radio and television in the U.S., Recommended