Generation X

Douglas Coupland

Can't add any intellectual comment to that book!!

Die acht Sphären der Zukunft

Matthias Horx

Reflections on different aspects of our future which has already become our prensent to some extent.

Generation Golf - Eine Inspektion

Florian Illies

German: Something like the German Version of Generation X, describing the life of young German people (better yuppies) in the 80ties. Compared to Coupland:
- less fiction
- less hope
- more sarcasm
which is most likely not a language issue, but due to cultural differences.

Slack - Getting past Burnout, Busywork and the Myth of Total Efficiency

Tom DeMarco

In a talk given by Tom DeMarco I listened to personally he said: "Every day you do not have the chance to grow and develop yourself, is a lost day". That is what slack is for.

The Cluetrain Manifesto - The End of Business as Usual

Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger

The soul, meaning and heart of the internet and its implications on modern business in a nutshell. To me: my personal number one in the list of books on internet and society. The whole book can be downloaded from the website: der Cluetrain-Website
Two of my favourite quotations
- Hyperlinks subvert hierachy (das letztendlich der Anstoß für die Reservierung der Domain www.subversiv.at war)
- We embrace the web not knowing what it is, but we hope it will burn the org chart - if not the organization - down to the ground.

The Monk and the Riddle - The Art of Creating a Life while Making a Living

Randy Komisar

Again, a book that does not fit into any category.
Philosophical reflections on lifeand work, insights into the machinery of mystical Silicon Valley. And an autobiography and/or a novel bringing back hope into the life of people not knowing where they belong to really.
The subtitle names it The Art of Creating a Life while Making a Living. My dream is to write something roughly comparable ten years from now.

So zähmen Sie Ihren inneren Schweinehund! - Vom ärgsten Feind zum besten Freund

Marco von Münchhausen

German: One of the funniest so-called life-management books

Die Auster - Von der Kunst aus Schmerzen Glanz zu zaubern

Klaus Woltron

German: Thoughts on the life, the universe and everything by the Austrian entrepreneur.
After a classical carrier in management Klaus Woltron seems to have found a way to combine work, life and reflection on the basic question of human existance in a better way.

Microserfs

Douglas Coupland

Coupland describes the life of a bunch of nerds at Microsoft in the mid-nineties and in their own company afterwards. But it is more than that: It is a mosaic of details building a perfect picture of a a generation's way of living and thinking.

Leading the Revolution

Gary Hamel

Don't be mislead by the title, it is a business bokk ;-)

21 Dog Years - Doing Time @ amazon.com

Mike Daisey

Continuing the tradition established by Microserfs with respect to the dotcom hype in the late nineties.
But compared to "Microserfs", this book reflects the author's personal story: Sarcasm and cynicism wrap a clear message - my favourite combination.

Small Pieces Loosely Joined - A Unified Theory of the Web

David Weinberger

David Weinberger is one of the author's of the Cluetrain Manifesto and was working as a scientist (philosopher) at the university, before becoming a consultant.
Less provoking than the Cluetrain Minifesto, this book is a sound and solid, but still unconventional contemplation on the nature of the web and ist influence on society.

God's Debris - A Thought Experiment

Scott Adams

Life, the universe and everything (© Douglas Adams) discussed in a kind of philosophical dialogue. I cannot agree to comments calling this book the first serious book written by Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoons.

Supramanie - Vom Pflichtmenschen zum Score-Man

Gunter Dueck

German book by the IBM fellow Gunter Dueck dealing with the implication of incentive based systems on human beings.