93 books like The New Hacker's Dictionary

By Eric S. Raymond,

Here are 93 books that The New Hacker's Dictionary fans have personally recommended if you like The New Hacker's Dictionary. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Journal of the Institute for Hacks, Tomfoolery & Pranks at MIT

Jeremy N. Smith Author Of Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called Alien

From my list on hackers and hacking.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jeremy N. Smith is the author of three acclaimed narrative non-fiction books, including Breaking and Entering, about a female hacker called “Alien” and the birth of our information insecurity age. He has written for The Atlantic, Discover, Slate, and the New York Times, among other outlets, and he and his work have been featured by CNN, NPR, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and Wired. He hosts The Hacker Next Door podcast and lives in Missoula, Montana.

Jeremy's book list on hackers and hacking

Jeremy N. Smith Why did Jeremy love this book?

The Journal of IHTFP (look up that acronym!) is a delightful introduction to the original hacking scene at MIT, where hacks were elaborate, extremely clever student pranks—handing out colored cards at a Harvard-Yale football game to spell MIT rather than BEAT YALE when raised by eleven hundred Harvard fans, for example, or sneaking a power supply, multi-piece wooden frame, and the outer metal parts of a Chevrolet Cavalier atop the school’s Great Dome, so it appeared that the building was mounted by a real police cruiser, complete with flashing lights and boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts. The oversized book includes numerous photographs. Now out of print, it has been replaced by Nightwork by T. F. Peterson, which includes more recent hacks.

Book cover of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Jeremy N. Smith Author Of Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called Alien

From my list on hackers and hacking.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jeremy N. Smith is the author of three acclaimed narrative non-fiction books, including Breaking and Entering, about a female hacker called “Alien” and the birth of our information insecurity age. He has written for The Atlantic, Discover, Slate, and the New York Times, among other outlets, and he and his work have been featured by CNN, NPR, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and Wired. He hosts The Hacker Next Door podcast and lives in Missoula, Montana.

Jeremy's book list on hackers and hacking

Jeremy N. Smith Why did Jeremy love this book?

Hackers is a classic account of the computer revolution, centered on the pioneering tinkerers, gamers, social theorists, entrepreneurs, and other explorers who made military and corporate technology personal. These are not hackers in the criminal sense most people understand the term today, but men (and a few women) like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others far less famous. Their interwoven biographies are brilliantly researched and reported, underpinned by what Levy calls a common “hacker ethic” whose tenets dominate our economy, politics, and culture today.

By Steven Levy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hackers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Steven Levy's classic book about the original hackers of the computer revolution is now available in a special 25th anniversary edition, with updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg, Richard Stallman, and Tim O'Reilly. Hackers traces the exploits of innovators from the research labs in the late 1950s to the rise of the home computer in the mid-1980s. It's a fascinating story of brilliant and eccentric nerds such as Steve Wozniak, Ken Williams, and John Draper who took risks, bent the rules, and took the world in a radical new direction. "Hacker" is often a derogatory…


Book cover of We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency

Jeremy N. Smith Author Of Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called Alien

From my list on hackers and hacking.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jeremy N. Smith is the author of three acclaimed narrative non-fiction books, including Breaking and Entering, about a female hacker called “Alien” and the birth of our information insecurity age. He has written for The Atlantic, Discover, Slate, and the New York Times, among other outlets, and he and his work have been featured by CNN, NPR, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and Wired. He hosts The Hacker Next Door podcast and lives in Missoula, Montana.

Jeremy's book list on hackers and hacking

Jeremy N. Smith Why did Jeremy love this book?

We Are Anonymous, along with Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman, explores the politics and personalities of the best-known real-world hacktivist group, Anonymous, how it rose to prominence and power, its impact and influence, and the government machinations that ultimately turned members against each other. Its pages reveal hackers at their most human—brilliant, idealistic, vulnerable, and conflicted.

By Parmy Olson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked We Are Anonymous as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A thrilling, exclusive exposè of the hacker collectives Anonymous and LulzSec.

We Are Anonymous is the first full account of how a loosely assembled group of hackers scattered across the globe formed a new kind of insurgency, seized headlines, and tortured the feds -- and the ultimate betrayal that would eventually bring them down. Parmy Olson goes behind the headlines and into the world of Anonymous and LulzSec with unprecedented access, drawing upon hundreds of conversations with the hackers themselves, including exclusive interviews with all six core members of LulzSec.

In late 2010, thousands of hacktivists joined a mass digital…


Book cover of Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker

Jeremy N. Smith Author Of Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called Alien

From my list on hackers and hacking.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jeremy N. Smith is the author of three acclaimed narrative non-fiction books, including Breaking and Entering, about a female hacker called “Alien” and the birth of our information insecurity age. He has written for The Atlantic, Discover, Slate, and the New York Times, among other outlets, and he and his work have been featured by CNN, NPR, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and Wired. He hosts The Hacker Next Door podcast and lives in Missoula, Montana.

Jeremy's book list on hackers and hacking

Jeremy N. Smith Why did Jeremy love this book?

A famous hacker’s real-life story, told from his own perspective, Ghost in the Wires explains how criminal hackers think and act and the diverse techniques they use, no keyboard necessary—all, in this case, with little motive beyond a compulsion to explore and exploit. The hacking community has no bigger characters than Kevin Mitnick and no better first-person accounts of the art of “social engineering,” or human hacking—manipulating people (including, in Mitnick’s case, the FBI and other would-be pursuers) to your own advantage.

By Kevin Mitnick, William L. Simon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ghost in the Wires as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this "intriguing, insightful and extremely educational" novel, the world's most famous hacker teaches you easy cloaking and counter-measures for citizens and consumers in the age of Big Brother and Big Data (Frank W. Abagnale).

Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world's biggest companies -- and no matter how fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. As the FBI's net finally began to tighten, Mitnick went on the run, engaging in an increasingly sophisticated game of hide-and-seek that escalated…


Book cover of Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems

Jean-Philippe Aumasson Author Of Serious Cryptography: A Practical Introduction to Modern Encryption

From my list on for cryptography apprentices.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started learning cryptography in the early 2000s with books borrowed from my university’s library, and with information I could find online. Since then I’ve practiced cryptography for 15 years in a variety of contexts: as an academic researcher, while working on my PhD; as a cryptography engineer for software and hardware pay-TV systems; as a consultant for private and public sector clients; as a vulnerability researcher in my spare time; as a code auditor for cryptography projects; as a start-up founder in the domain of IoT security; and as CSO (chief security officer) of a fintech start-up. I live in Lausanne, Switzerland, and besides crypto I enjoy literature, rock climbing, and playing classical guitar.

Jean-Philippe's book list on for cryptography apprentices

Jean-Philippe Aumasson Why did Jean-Philippe love this book?

One of the books that I open at least once a year, and which I always recommend to students and mentees. Security Engineering isn’t a book (only) about cryptography, yet one about a topic that a cryptographer should know well: security engineering, or the design, implementation, and testing of systems that must be reliable in hostile and adversarial environments. Cryptography is indeed often just a small, yet critical, component of larger security systems. A good cryptographer must therefore not limit themselves to their field, but understand the risks, practical constraints, and functional needs of the environment where cryptography is integrated. Anderson’s book is the undisputed reference in that space.  

By Ross Anderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Security Engineering as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now that there's software in everything, how can you make anything secure? Understand how to engineer dependable systems with this newly updated classic

In Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems, Third Edition Cambridge University professor Ross Anderson updates his classic textbook and teaches readers how to design, implement, and test systems to withstand both error and attack.

This book became a best-seller in 2001 and helped establish the discipline of security engineering. By the second edition in 2008, underground dark markets had let the bad guys specialize and scale up; attacks were increasingly on users rather than…


Book cover of Mastering Regular Expressions

Ian Miell Author Of Learn Bash the Hard Way: Master Bash Using The Only Method That Works

From my list on becoming a Linux command line ninja.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like most geeks, I've always loved efficiency and productivity. Coming from a Windows-dominated world, the command line I was faced with in my CompSci degree was Initially mystifying, but over time I have come to see it as the most powerful human-computer interface out there. After spending years wresting with the command line at work, I decided to write a book on bash, and have blogged extensively on this and related topics. I also run live courses on bash and the command line for O'Reilly. There's nothing I enjoy more than opening people's eyes to the power of the shell!   

Ian's book list on becoming a Linux command line ninja

Ian Miell Why did Ian love this book?

Regular expressions are the cornerstone of command line wizardry.

They are used in pretty much all command-line tools, and all programming languages.

If you read this book, you'll have a deep understanding of what's going on, and the knowledge to go from hand-waving and guessing your way through regular expression writing to the mastery the book promises.

By Jeffrey E F Friedl,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mastering Regular Expressions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Regular expressions are an extremely powerful tool for manipulating text and data. They are now standard features in a wide range of languages and popular tools, including Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, VB.NET and C# (and any language using the .NET Framework), PHP, and MySQL. If you don't use regular expressions yet, you will discover in this book a whole new world of mastery over your data. If you already use them, you'll appreciate this book's unprecedented detail and breadth of coverage. If you think you know all you need to know about regular expressions, this book is a stunning eye-opener.…


Book cover of Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Shimon Schocken Author Of The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

From my list on how computers work, and how they are built.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a computer science professor and educator, my teaching motto is Rigor and Vigor. I believe that the only way to learn something deeply, whether it's an abstract mathematical argument or a complex computer system – is building the thing from the ground up, from first principles. That's the rigor. The second requirement – vigor – comes from the need to make this learning experience captivating, rewarding, empowering. I spent much of my career developing books, courses, and games that help learn computer science and mathematics with gusto. I am pleased that this work has had an impact, and that it resonates with many students and self-learners around the world.

Shimon's book list on how computers work, and how they are built

Shimon Schocken Why did Shimon love this book?

This popular book takes a broad perspective that surveys the main physical and logical layers from which all digital devices are made.

I like the accessible writing style, aimed at lay readers, and the book’s companion website, where one can experiment interactively with many of the artifacts described in the book. The second edition includes a new section that focuses on a functional subset of Intel 8080, the microprocessor that ushered the personal computing revolution, and the instruction set used by many PCs and servers today.

By Charles Petzold,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Code as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries.

Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who's ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines.

It's a cleverly illustrated…


Book cover of One for the Money

Mike Player Author Of Hyperloop To Hell

From my list on funny stories (not just barely amusing).

Why am I passionate about this?

I used to make my grandmother laugh at the dinner table, to the annoyance of my mother. My grandmother had a great laugh I can hear to this day. In high school forensics I won the humorous interpretation trophy (first place) for a National Lampoon Parody I performed of the Hardy Boys, beating out 100 other contestants. I knew then, I could do standup, and later, improv. My comedy group in New York was called “wonderful…refreshingly different!” by the NY Post. I produced “The Outlaugh Festival On Wisecrack” years later for MTV’s LOGO network. When we’re all laughing is when we are truly together.

Mike's book list on funny stories (not just barely amusing)

Mike Player Why did Mike love this book?

Okay, Evanovich has written seven million Stephanie Plum mysteries, but they are truly funny. Best start with the first one, when we were all young and had golden hair (highlights?).

The humor is smart and not sophomoric. I’m an improv comic and there is a difference between being juvenile and crude, and being clever. Check her clever Plum series out if you want to laugh. There are so many of them you could also use them to build that upstairs addition you’ve been planning.

By Janet Evanovich,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked One for the Money as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Stephanie Plum is down on her luck. She's lost her job, her car's on the brink of repossession, and her apartment is fast becoming furniture-free.

Enter Cousin Vinnie, a low-life who runs a bail-bond company. If Stephanie can bring in vice cop turned outlaw Joe Morelli, she stands to pick up $10,000. But tracking down a cop wanted for murder isn't easy . . .

And when Benito Ramirez, a prize-fighter with more menace than mentality, wants to be her friend Stephanie soon knows what it's like to be pursued. Unfortunately the best person to protect her just happens to…


Book cover of The Star Trek Book of Friendship: You Have Been, and Always Shall Be, My Friend

Troy Lambert Author Of The Tao of Trek

From my list on Star Trek for Trekkies and science nerds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by Star Trek since I was a young child and went to my first convention, seeing a gorgeous Uhura walk by trailed by three gentlemen dressed as Mr. Spock. One of my local librarians must have been a Trekkie because I checked out stacks of novels from the likes of James Blish and Vonda McIntyre. Now, as an author myself, I feel privileged to have not only been a Trekkie for many years but to have written a book about Star Trek with one of my best friends. I hope you enjoy these Star Trek books, and the many others that are coming this year and beyond, as much as I have. 

Troy's book list on Star Trek for Trekkies and science nerds

Troy Lambert Why did Troy love this book?

Much of what I learned about real friendship I learned from Star Trek. From the many episodes of the original series I saw in syndication to the heartbreaking ending of Wrath of Kahn, the principle of “I am, and forever will be, your friend,” has influenced many of my friendships over the years. 

This book explores those friendships we have seen on screen, from Kirk and Spock, to Picard and Data, from Janeway and Seven of Nine to Bashir and Garak. Told through the eyes of fans, this is a great gift to yourself or your best friend if you want to make them jealous.

By Robb Pearlman, Jordan Hoffman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Star Trek Book of Friendship as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Star Trek has energized friendships for over 50 years. Whether it's exploring a convention, beaming into a movie theater, or joining in on a landing party watch party, generations have been as united in their love of the franchise's bold storytelling and stunning action as they are in the honest fully realized relationships of their favorite characters.

Created by fans for fans, with a foreword from Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Picardo and Ethan Phillips, this is a first-of- its-kind, fully authorized celebration of Star Trek's most enduring and endearing friendships, including Kirk and Spock, Picard and Data, Janeway and Seven…


Book cover of The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories

Beau Johnston Author Of Sleep with One Eye Open

From my list on books that you’re going to hell for laughing at.

Why am I passionate about this?

By now you are probably wondering why the author of a dark and violent tale set in the Zombie Apocalypse is recommending humorous books. The answer lies within the five elements of survival: Shelter, Fire, Food, Water, and Mindset. A positive mindset can get you through a lot of dark and dangerous times, and being able to find the funny in the darkness will help you maintain that mindset (especially if you are injured or scared). 

Beau's book list on books that you’re going to hell for laughing at

Beau Johnston Why did Beau love this book?

I was a fan of Tim Burton's movies long before I discovered this little treasure. I’m not normally a fan of poetry, but letting your inner voice read these tales in Christopher Lee's voice (Willy Wonka's father in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) is pure magic. These short tales and corresponding drawings are as funny as they are dark (a little disturbing and definitely not for small children).

By Tim Burton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Twenty-three illustrated gothic tales from the dark corridors of the imagination of Tim Burton. Burton - the creative genius behind Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow and Nightmare Before Christmas, among others - now gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children: misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds. His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and tragedy of these hopeful, yet hapless beings.


5 book lists we think you will like!

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