What would be good books (fiction or nonfiction) which focus on the history, human element, or other interesting aspect of a subject to accompany courses that might not otherwise have readings? Emphasis on books that are not textbooks. Inspired by a Goodreads review.
Please add your own course-book pairing by submitting a pull request!
Sorted alphabetically by course number.
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
The Bug by Ellen Ullman
The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges
Mindstorms by Seymour Papert
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (fiction), or Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks (nonfiction)
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
The Human Use of Human Beings by Norbert Wiener
The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard