Weaving the World Wide Web - by Tim Berners Lee
This book is an amazing look into the simple orgins of the many of the underlying technologies and protocols of the web. Building on the uber-geek achievements of the originators of the Internet, Vint Cerf et al, Berners Lee took the real end-user nightmare of document and data management at the Cern research facilities and developed an elegant and eminently scalable solution that we know today as the World Wide Web. Amazon, eBay, Google, and all the rest owe their success in many ways to this one individual. A must read for all Internet historians and a "light geek" read for those just curious.

Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
Would you like to develop a solid understanding of the principals of web usability? This book is an excellent primer on a very complex and evolving subject area. Filled with pictures, this book takes a visual approach to Site Deconstruction, making it an excellent tool for even web novices. The extensive examples while a few years old, clearly demonstrate the key concepts of site real estate optimization, and usability. Jakob Neilson is THE guru of web usability, literally any of his books are excellent, but this one is the easiest to digest. His website, Useit.com is produced by the company he founded with other noted web and software usability gurus Donald Norman and Bruce Tognazzini. Lots of great content - dig in!

Ruby on Rails by Bruce Tate
Ok so this is a purely hype driven link. This "soon to be classic" from O'Reilly Publishing is still gestating but the buzz is enourmous. If you are really desperate you can buy the current "rough" draft in PDF format. Even contribute changes or suggestions which may be incorporated in the final print version, which will be released in July of this year. How geeky is that!?! Check out the official Oreilly site for all the geektastic fun. But all publishing geekness aside, Ruby sounds like the next great thing from an application development perspective.

The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler
This book is a must read. We are running out of oil. Current levels of world wide prosperity are predicated on the oil economy. All current known reserves have passed their "peak output" levels. Scared? It is a depressing read, but a cold splash on the face that we desperately need to get wash the black gold from our eyes. He is quite pessimistic about the ability of technology to once again come to the rescue. He accurately points out that battery technology has not changed much in the past 50 years. I enjoy this book because its dark predictions with significant basis in fact, force a re-evaluation of even the most obscure energy solutions like burning household garbage to make electricity.
 

The World is Flat
I have read Thomas Friedman since I began reading his New York Times column in 1990 during my Political Science and Internation Relations studies at University of Toronto. His work From Beirut to Jerusalem was an incredible window into the heart of the conflict between Palestinians and Isrealis. It was that style that hooked me to his other works . The World is Flat is a continuation of some of the themes in his other books like The Lexus and the Olive Branch. Themes like Globalization, the influence of technology, and economics, deep stuff, and it is all going on right now. All around us. Friedman's style is very engaging not nearly as doom and gloom as Kunstler but similar notions that changes are going on, and they are fundemental and broad reaching. Another necessary read for the modern globalist.