Best of Technology Writing 2006

“The essays collected in this book are sparkling, imaginative pieces of journalism that just happen to be about technology. People steeped in the world of AJAX or Massively Mulitplayer Online Games will find a lot to value here, but so will readers simply in search of good writing.”
—James Fallows, National Correspondent for Atlantic Monthly


“The human experience is being shaped by our symbiotic relationship to technology. What makes this collection wonderful is that it’s not about the technology, per se, but it’s about this changing human experience. I will look forward to it every year.”
—Po Bronson, author of What Should I Do With My Life?


The Best of Technology Writing 2006 brings together some of the most important, timely, and just plain readable writing in the fast-paced, high-stakes field of technology. The first annual collection to target this vibrant and versatile area, The Best of Technology Writing 2006 features innovative work from an unusually diverse array of writers: best-selling authors, noted academics, and indie journalists and bloggers. The culmination of an open, on-line nominating process, this collection covers topics ranging from jetpacks, to the ethics of genetically cloned pets, to the meaning of life in the information age. By turns epic and intimate, serious and playful, The Best of Technology Writing 2006 captures the vitality, importance, and complexity of technology today. Koerner

Featuring contributions from:

David A. Bell

David Bernstein

Mike Daisey

Joshua Davis

Jay Dixit

Daniel Engber

Dan Ferber

Steven Johnson

Steven Levy

Farhad Manjoo

Lisa Margonelli

David McNeill

Justin Mullins

Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah

Adam L. Penenberg

Daniel H. Pink

Evan Ratliff

Alex Ross

Jim Rossignol

Jesse Sunenblick

Edward Tenner

Clive Thompson

Joseph Turow

Richard Waters



Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor for Wired, a columnist for both New York Times and Slate, and a fellow at the New America Foundation. His first book will be published by Henry Holt & Company in 2008.

digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

Who lives in a world of swimming robots, rocket belts and cloning? It turns out that everyone does. In this revealing collection of the year's best tech writing-articles that, "for all of their byzantine details," make the human connection-there are plenty of surprises for techies and casual readers alike. Culled by Koerner, with the help of online participants, from such diverse print and electronic media as Technology Review, Wired, the New Yorker, the Financial Times, Salon and Slate, the threads that hold these pieces together are fine writing and fascinating subjects. Stories here cover the prescient (Farhad Majoo's "Throwing Google at the Book"), the historical (Alex Ross's "The Record Effect"), the irreverent (David Bernstein's "When the Sous-Chef is an Inkjet") and the wacky (Justin Mullins's "Ups and Downs of Jetpacks"), repeatedly touching on developments in art, food, health and the intersection of global and local culture. Some of the articles can be difficult to penetrate-one disappointment is Evan Ratliff's story of Russian cyber-security, "The Zombie Hunters"-but the great majority of these 24 pieces prove fun and engaging.
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