29 Best books for computer science majors

Weighing in from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, today’s most forward-thinking minds explore the rise of “machines that think.”

Stephen Hawking recently made headlines by noting, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” Others, conversely, have trumpeted a new age of “superintelligence” in which smart devices will exponentially extend human capacities. No longer just a matter of science-fiction fantasy (2001, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Her, etc.), it is time to seriously consider the reality of intelligent technology, many forms of which are already being integrated into our daily lives. In that spirit, John Brockman, publisher of Edge. org (“the world’s smartest website” – The Guardian), asked the world’s most influential scientists, philosophers, and artists one of today’s most consequential questions: What do you think about machines that think?

Will technology change what it means to be human?

You don’t have to be a computer scientist to have discerning conversations about artificial intelligence and technology. We all wonder where we’re headed. Even now, technological innovations and machine learning have a daily impact on our lives, and many of us see good reasons to dread the future. Are we doomed to the surveillance society imagined in George Orwell’s 1984?

Mathematician and philosopher John Lennox believes that there are credible answers to the daunting questions that AI poses, and he shows that Christianity has some very serious, sensible, evidence-based responses about the nature of our quest for superintelligence.

2084 will introduce you to a kaleidoscope of ideas:

• The key developments in technological enhancement, bioengineering, and, in particular, artificial intelligence.
• The agreements and disagreements that scientists and experts have about the future of AI.
• The key insights that Christianity and Scripture have about the nature of human beings, the soul, our moral sense, our future, and what separates us from machines.

In straight-forward language, you’ll get a better understanding of the current capacity of AI, its potential benefits and dangers, the facts and the fiction, as well as possible future implications.

The questions posed by AI are open to all of us, daunting as they might be. And they demand answers. 2084 is written to challenge and ignite the curiosity of all readers. No matter your worldview, Lennox provides clear information and credible answers that will bring you real hope for the future of humanity.

Inspired by the groundbreaking A History of the World in 100 Objects, this book draws on the unique collections of The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, to chronicle the evolution of video games, from Pong to first-person shooters, told through the stories of dozens of objects essential to the field’s creation and development.

Drawing on the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s unmatched collection of video game artifacts, this fascinating history offers an expansive look at the development of one of the most popular and influential activities of the modern world: video gaming.

Sixty-four unique objects tell the story of the video game from inception to today. Pithy, in-depth essays examine each object’s significance to video game play–what it has contributed to the history of gaming–as well as the greater culture.

A History of Video Games in 64 Objects explains how the video game has transformed over time. Inside, you’ll find a wide range of intriguing topics, including:

• The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons–the ancestor of computer role-playing games
• The Oregon Trail and the development of educational gaming
• The Atari 2600 and the beginning of the console revolution
• A World of Warcraft server blade and massively multiplayer online games
• Minecraft–the backlash against the studio system
• The rise of women in gaming represented by pioneering American video game designers Carol Shaw and Roberta Williams’ game development materials
• The prototype Skylanders Portal of Power that spawned the Toys-to-Life video game phenomenon and shook up the marketplace
• And so much more!

A panorama of unforgettable anecdotes and factoids, A History of Video Games in 64 Objects is a treasure trove for gamers and pop culture fans. Let the gaming begin!

Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on hundreds of millions of computers around the world. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsoft’s astounding success?

Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft’s innermost secrets. This inside report, based on forty in-depth interviews by authors who had access to confidential documents and project data, outlines the seven complementary strategies that characterize exactly how Microsoft competes and operates, including the “Brain Trust” of talented employees and exceptional management; “bang for the buck” competitive strategies and clear organizational goals that produce self-critiquing, learning, and improving; a flexible, incremental approach to product development; and a relentless pursuit of future markets.

Cusumano and Selby’s masterful analysis successfully uncovers the distinctive way in which Microsoft has combined all of the elements necessary to get to the top of an enormously important industry–and stay there.

From Oxford’s leading AI researcher comes a fun and accessible tour through the history and future of one of the most cutting edge and misunderstood field in science: Artificial Intelligence

The somewhat ill-defined long-term aim of AI is to build machines that are conscious, self-aware, and sentient; machines capable of the kind of intelligent autonomous action that currently only people are capable of. As an AI researcher with 25 years of experience, professor Mike Wooldridge has learned to be obsessively cautious about such claims, while still promoting an intense optimism about the future of the field. There have been genuine scientific breakthroughs that have made AI systems possible in the past decade that the founders of the field would have hailed as miraculous. Driverless cars and automated translation tools are just two examples of AI technologies that have become a practical, everyday reality in the past few years, and which will have a huge impact on our world.

While the dream of conscious machines remains, Professor Wooldridge believes, a distant prospect, the floodgates for AI have opened. Wooldridge’s A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence is an exciting romp through the history of this groundbreaking field–a one-stop-shop for AI’s past, present, and world-changing future.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

Cammie Parker is ready for a fresh start. Just because she didn’t get her own happy ending, doesn’t mean she’s any less committed to helping other couples find theirs. And a new job with the event coordinator at a gorgeous mountain resort is the perfect way to do just that. It would be the perfect fresh start if not for her first assignment: helping her cheating jerk of an ex and his new fiancee plan their wedding. Cade Taylor needs to shake things up. There’s nothing wrong with loving what you do, but when your job becomes your whole life, something’s got to give. Cade knows he’s in a rut, but he just can’t seem to break out of it no matter what he does. When Cammie shows up in one of his equipment sheds looking like she needs a quick escape, Cade sees the perfect opportunity to put a little bit of excitement back into his life. What starts out as a way to avoid her ex soon turns into a crazy–and sexy–game of hide and seek. But you can only hide for so long, especially if you want a real shot at your own happy ever after.

The future is now. Acclaimed technologist and inventor Amir Husain explains how we can live amidst the coming age of sentient machines and artificial intelligence–and not only survive, but thrive.

Artificial “machine” intelligence is playing an ever-greater role in our society. We are already using cruise control in our cars, automatic checkout at the drugstore, and are unable to live without our smartphones. The discussion around AI is polarized; people think either machines will solve all problems for everyone, or they will lead us down a dark, dystopian path into total human irrelevance. Regardless of what you believe, the idea that we might bring forth intelligent creation can be intrinsically frightening. But what if our greatest role as humans so far is that of creators?

Amir Husain, a brilliant inventor and computer scientist, argues that we are on the cusp of writing our next, and greatest, creation myth. It is the dawn of a new form of intellectual diversity, one that we need to embrace in order to advance the state of the art in many critical fields, including security, resource management, finance, and energy. “In The Sentient Machine, Husain prepares us for a brighter future; not with hyperbole about right and wrong, but with serious arguments about risk and potential” (Dr. Greg Hyslop, Chief Technology Officer, The Boeing Company). He addresses broad existential questions surrounding the coming of AI: Why are we valuable? What can we create in this world? How are we intelligent? What constitutes progress for us? And how might we fail to progress? Husain boils down complex computer science and AI concepts into clear, plainspoken language and draws from a wide variety of cultural and historical references to illustrate his points. Ultimately, Husain challenges many of our societal norms and upends assumptions we hold about “the good life.”

Is the Brexit vote successful big-data politics or the end of democracy? Why do airlines overbook, and why do banks get it wrong so often? How does big data enable Netflix to forecast a hit, CERN to find the Higgs boson, and medics to discover if red wine really is good for you? And how are companies using big data to benefit from smart meters, to use advertising to spy on you, and to develop the gig economy, where workers are managed by the whim of an algorithm? The volumes of data we now access can give unparalleled abilities to make predictions, respond to customer demand, and solve problems. But Big Brother’s shadow hovers over it. Although big data can set us free and enhance our lives, it has the potential to create an underclass and a totalitarian state. With big data ever present, you can’t afford to ignore it. In this book, acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg–a habitual early adopter of new technology (and the owner of the second-ever copy of Windows in the UK)–brings big data to life.

As cyber-attacks dominate front-page news, as hackers join the list of global threats, and as top generals warn of a coming cyber war, few books are more timely and enlightening than Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War by Slate columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Fred Kaplan.

Kaplan probes the inner corridors of the National Security Agency, the beyond-top-secret cyber units in the Pentagon, the “information warfare” squads of the military services, and the national security debates in the White House to tell this never-before-told story of the officers, policymakers, scientists, and spies who devised this new form of warfare and who have been planning–and, more often than people know, fighting–these wars for decades.

From the 1991 Gulf War to conflicts in Haiti, Serbia, Syria, the former Soviet republics, Iraq, and Iran, where cyber warfare played a significant role, Dark Territory chronicles, in fascinating detail, an unknown past that shines an unsettling light on our future.

One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks, where does the self come from — and how our selves can exist in the minds of others. Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, “I” arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the “strange loop”-a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called “I.” The “I” is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. How can a mysterious abstraction be real-or is our “I” merely a convenient fiction? Does an “I” exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics? These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter’s first book-length journey into philosophy since Godel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is a moving and profound inquiry into the nature of mind.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has been hailed by Time magazine as one of the 100 greatest minds of this century.His creation has already changed the way people do business, entertain themselves, exchange ideas, and socialize with one another. With new online businesses and communities forming every day, the full impact of Berners-Lee’s grand scheme has yet to be fully realized.

Now, this low-profile genius tells his own story of the Web’s origins–from its radical introduction and the creation of the now ubiquitous WWW and HTTP acronyms to how he sees the future development of this revolutionary medium.

Berners-Lee offers insights to help listeners understand the true nature of the Web, enabling them to use it to their fullest advantage. He shares his views on such critical issues as censorship, privacy, and the increasing power of software companies in the online world.

In Liking Jesus, a timely and life-changing book, New York Times bestselling author and pastor of Life.Church Craig Groeschel helps put Christ first again in today’s maxed out, selfie-centered world.

The more you compare, the less satisfied you are. The more we interact online, the more we crave intimacy. The more filtered our lives become, the harder it is to be real.

It’s time to refresh and rediscover what it means to be “like Jesus” and find true authenticity, a healthy self-image, and compassion for others in an age when we relate to each other so differently than ever before. Groeschel taps into some of the most leading-edge studies on the effects of social media on our emotions and friendships. He offers real-life examples of how we struggle with screens and likes, how these things mask our struggles with who we really are, and how we can reclaim a Christ-centered life.

Packed with helpful topics like the “10 Commandments of Using Social Media to Strengthen Your Faith” and “Creating Safeguards for Your Digital Devices,” readers from ages sixteen to sixty will find Liking Jesus to be just the guide to bring balance and real-world engagement to everyday life. 

Foreword by Bill Gates

Microsoft’s CEO tells the inside story of the company’s continuing transformation, tracing his own personal journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant technological changes in the digital era. As much a humanist as engineer and executive, Nadella concludes with his vision for the coming wave of intelligent technologies and a distinct call to action for leaders everywhere.

Hit Refresh is about individual change, about the transformation happening inside of Microsoft and the technology that will soon impact all of our lives–the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced: artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing.

It’s about how people, organizations, and societies can and must transform “hit refresh” in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal. At its core, it’s about us humans and how our one unique quality–empathy–will become ever more valuable in a world where technological advancement will disrupt the status quo as never before.

Satya Nadella explores a fascinating childhood before immigrating to the U.S. and how he learned to lead along the way. He then shares his meditations as sitting CEO–one who is mostly unknown following the brainy Bill Gates and energetic Steve Ballmer. He tells the inside story of how a company rediscovered its soul–transforming everything from culture to their fiercely competitive landscape and industry partnerships. Nadella concludes with his vision for the coming wave of technology and by exploring the potential impact to society and delivering call to action for world leaders.

“Ideas excite me,” Nadella explains. “Empathy grounds and centers me.” Hit Refresh is a reflection, meditations, and series of recommendations presented as algorithms from a principled, deliberative leader searching for improvement–for himself, for a storied company, and for society.

The true father of the modern computer was not John von Neumann, as he is generally credited. That honor belongs to the two men, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, who built the world’s first programmable computer: the legendary ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer).Their three-year race to create the ENIAC is a compelling tale of brilliance and misfortune that has never been told before.

Mauchly and Eckert developed a revolutionary vision: to make electricity “think.” Funded by the US Army, the team they led constructed a behemoth the size of a three-bedroom apartment. It weighed thirty tons, cost nearly half a million dollars–plus $650 an hour to run–and had eighteen thousand vacuum tubes with miles of wiring. But in 1945, the ENIAC was the cutting edge in technology and a herald of the digital age to come,blazing a trail to the next generation of computers that quickly followed.

Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of Mauchly and Eckert’s personal papers,ENIACis a dramatic human story and a vital contribution to the history of technology that restores to the two inventors the legacy they deserve.

The “brilliant” and “daringly original” (The New York Times) critique of digital networks from the “David Foster Wallace of tech” (London Evening Standard)–asserting that to fix our economy, we must fix our information economy.

Jaron Lanier is the father of virtual reality and one of the world’s most brilliant thinkers. Who Owns the Future? is his visionary reckoning with the most urgent economic and social trend of our age: the poisonous concentration of money and power in our digital networks.

Lanier has predicted how technology will transform our humanity for decades, and his insight has never been more urgently needed. He shows how Siren Servers, which exploit big data and the free sharing of information, led our economy into recession, imperiled personal privacy, and hollowed out the middle class. The networks that define our world–including social media, financial institutions, and intelligence agencies–now threaten to destroy it.

But there is an alternative. In this provocative, poetic, and deeply humane book, Lanier charts a path toward a brighter future: an information economy that rewards ordinary people for what they do and share on the web.

The reach of Corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater; many of us rarely use cash these days. But what we’re told is a natural and inevitable move is actually the work of powerful interests. And the great battle of our time is the battle for ownership of the digital footprints that make up our lives.

In Cloudmoney, Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how the fusion of Big Finance and Big Tech requires “cloudmoney”–digital money underpinned by the banking sector–to replace physical cash. He dives beneath the surface of the global financial system to uncover a long-established lobbying infrastructure: an alliance of partners waging a covert war on cash. He explains the technical, political, and cultural differences between our various forms of money and shows how the cash system has been under attack for decades, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress.

Cloudmoney takes us to the front lines of a war for our wallets that is also about our freedom, from marketing strategies against cash to the weaponization of COVID-19 to push fintech platforms, and from there to the rise of the cryptocurrency rebels and fringe groups pushing back. It asks the most pressing questions:

Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind?

Is the end of cash the end of true privacy?

And is our cloudmoney future closer than we think it is?

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

In The United States of Anonymous, Jeff Kosseff explores how the right to anonymity has shaped American values, politics, business, security, and discourse, particularly as technology has enabled people to separate their identities from their communications.

Legal and political debates surrounding online privacy often focus on the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, overlooking the history and future of an equally powerful privacy right: the First Amendment’s protection of anonymity. The United States of Anonymous features extensive and engaging interviews with people involved in the highest profile anonymity cases, as well as with those who have benefited from, and been harmed by, anonymous communications. Through these interviews, Kosseff explores how courts have protected anonymity for decades and, likewise, how law and technology have allowed individuals to control how much, if any, identifying information is associated with their communications. From blocking laws that prevent Ku Klux Klan members from wearing masks to restraining Alabama officials from forcing the NAACP to disclose its membership lists, and to refusing companies’ requests to unmask online critics, courts have recognized that anonymity is a vital part of our free speech protections.

The United States of Anonymous weighs the tradeoffs between the right to hide identity and the harms of anonymity, concluding that we must maintain a strong, if not absolute, right to anonymous speech.

The most extensive account yet of the lives of cybercriminals and the vast international industry they have created, deeply sourced and based on field research in the world’s technology-crime hotspots

Cybercrime seems invisible. Attacks arrive out of nowhere, their origins hidden by layers of sophisticated technology. Only the victims are clear. But every crime has its perpetrator–specific individuals or groups sitting somewhere behind keyboards and screens. Jonathan Lusthaus lifts the veil on the world of these cybercriminals in the most extensive account yet of the lives they lead, and the vast international industry they have created.

We are long past the age of the lone adolescent hacker tapping away in his parents’ basement. Cybercrime now operates like a business. Its goods and services may be illicit, but it is highly organized, complex, driven by profit, and globally interconnected. Having traveled to cybercrime hotspots around the world to meet with hundreds of law enforcement agents, security gurus, hackers, and criminals, Lusthaus takes us inside this murky underworld and reveals how this business works. He explains the strategies criminals use to build a thriving industry in a low-trust environment characterized by a precarious combination of anonymity and teamwork. Crime takes hold where there is more technical talent than legitimate opportunity, and where authorities turn a blind eye–perhaps for a price. In the fight against cybercrime, understanding what drives people into this industry is as important as advanced security.

Based on seven years of fieldwork from Eastern Europe to West Africa, Industry of Anonymity is a compelling and revealing study of a rational business model which, however much we might wish otherwise, has become a defining feature of the modern world.

A call-to-arms about the broken nature of artificial intelligence, and the powerful corporations that are turning the human-machine relationship on its head.

We like to think that we are in control of the future of “artificial” intelligence. The reality, though, is that we — the everyday people whose data powers AI — aren’t actually in control of anything. When, for example, we speak with Alexa, we contribute that data to a system we can’t see and have no input into — one largely free from regulation or oversight. The big nine corporations — Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple–are the new gods of AI and are short-changing our futures to reap immediate financial gain.

In this book, Amy Webb reveals the pervasive, invisible ways in which the foundations of AI — the people working on the system, their motivations, the technology itself — is broken. Within our lifetimes, AI will, by design, begin to behave unpredictably, thinking and acting in ways which defy human logic. The big nine corporations may be inadvertently building and enabling vast arrays of intelligent systems that don’t share our motivations, desires, or hopes for the future of humanity.

Much more than a passionate, human-centered call-to-arms, this book delivers a strategy for changing course, and provides a path for liberating us from algorithmic decision-makers and powerful corporations.

A few hundred years into the future, a wave of space colonization follows a disastrous earlier attempt to inhabit nearby extrasolar planets. It is guided by a new computational method based on massive data-driven socio-cultural and socio-epidemiological modeling and using novel biological computers, fed with data on Earth’s history of successes and failures.

Yet, in the newly settled Simpac system, some unexpected and worrying anomalies begin cropping up, making an urgent expedition to the system necessary: is it the underlying data, the computations, or is some unknown entity tampering with the space colonization program? A race against time ensues as the lives of four strangers begin to converge.

While grounded in the social systems aspect, the author posits that the future is likely to be characterized by more biology-based tools than most contemporary science fiction–which most often relies entirely on nonbiological hardware in terms of advanced technologies–predicts. The result is an entertaining and skillful blend of thriller and SF, complemented by a nontechnical appendix describing the underlying science.

From Dan Wells, author of the New York Times bestselling Partials Sequence and the John Cleaver series, comes the second book in a dark, pulse-pounding sci-fi-noir series set in 2050 Los Angeles.

Overworld. It’s more than just the world’s most popular e-sport–for thousands of VR teams around the globe, Overworld is life. It means fame and fortune, or maybe it’s a ticket out of obscurity or poverty. If you have a connection to the internet and four friends you trust with your life, anything is possible.

Marisa Carneseca is on the hunt for a mysterious hacker named Grendel when she receives word that her amateur Overworld team has been invited to Forward Motion, one of the most exclusive tournaments of the year. For Marisa, this could mean anything–a chance to finally go pro and to help her family, stuck in an LA neighborhood on the wrong side of the growing divide between the rich and the poor. But Forward Motion turns out to be more than it seems–rife with corruption, infighting, and danger–and Marisa runs headlong into Alain Bensoussan, a beautiful, dangerous underground freedom fighter who reveals to her the darker side of the forces behind the tournament. It soon becomes clear that, in this game, winning might be the only way to get out alive.

Tracy Kidder’s “riveting” (Washington Post) story of one company’s efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech industry.

Digital connections permeate our lives–and so do data breaches. Given that we must be online for basic communication, finance, healthcare, and more, it is remarkable how difficult it is to secure our personal information. Despite the passage of many data security
laws, data breaches are increasing at a record pace. In Breached!, Daniel Solove and Woodrow Hartzog, two of the world’s leading experts on privacy and data security issues, argue that the law fails because, ironically, it focuses too much on the breach itself.

Drawing insights from many fascinating stories about data breaches, Solove and Hartzog show how major breaches could have been prevented or mitigated through better rules and often inexpensive, non-cumbersome means. They also reveal why the current law is
counterproductive. It pummels organizations that have suffered a breach but doesn’t recognize how others contribute to the breach. These outside actors include software companies that create vulnerable software, device companies that make insecure devices,
government policymakers who write regulations that increase security risks, organizations that train people to engage in risky behaviors, and more.

Although humans are the weakest link for data security, the law remains oblivious to the fact that policies and technologies are often designed with a poor understanding of human behavior. Breached! corrects this course by focusing on the human side of security. This
book sets out a holistic vision for data security law–one that holds all actors accountable, understands security broadly and in relationship to privacy, looks to prevention and mitigation rather than reaction, and is designed with people in mind. The book closes with
a roadmap for how we can reboot law and policy surrounding data security.

The riveting true story of Dudley Buck–American scientist, government agent, and Cold War hero–whose pioneering work with computer chips placed him firmly in the sights of the KGB.

Dr. Dudley Allen Buck was a brilliant young scientist on the cusp of fame and fortune when he died suddenly on May 21, 1959, at the age of thirty-two. He was the star professor at MIT and had done stints with the NSA and Lockheed. His latest invention, the Cryotron–an early form of the microchip–was attracting attention all over the globe. It was thought that the Cryotron could guide a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles to their targets.

Four weeks before Dudley Buck’s death, he was visited by a group of the Soviet Union’s top computer experts. On the same day that he died from a mysterious heart attack, his close colleague, Dr. Louis Ridenour, was also found dead from similar causes. Two top American computer scientists had unexpectedly died young on the same day. Were their deaths linked?

Two years old when his father died, Douglas Buck was never satisfied with the explanation of his father’s death and has spent more than twenty years investigating it, acquiring his father’s lab books, diaries, correspondence, research papers, and patent filings. Armed with this research, award-winning journalist Iain Dey tells, with compelling immediacy, the story of Dudley Buck’s life and groundbreaking work, starting from his unconventional beginnings in California through to his untimely death and beyond. The Cryotron Files is at once the gripping narrative history of America and its computer scientists during the Cold War and the dramatic personal story of rising MIT star Dudley Buck in the high-stakes days of spies, supercomputers, and the space and nuclear race.

2020 Audie Awards(r) Winner – Business/Personal Development

A comprehensive step-by-step guide to creating a hit show, So You Want to Start a Podcast covers everything from hosting and guest booking to editing and marketing – while offering plenty of encouragement and insider stories along the way.

Though they are the fastest-growing form of media, podcasts are actually difficult to create–and even harder to sustain. Few know the secrets of successfully creating a knockout podcast better than Kristen Meinzer. An award-winning commentator, producer, and former director of nonfiction programming for Slate’s sister company, Panoply, Meinzer has also hosted three successful podcasts, reaching more than ten million listeners. Now, she shares her expertise, providing aspiring podcasters with crucial information and guidance to start their own audio forum.

Meinzer believes that we each have a unique voice that deserves to be heard. But many of us may need some help transforming our ideas into reality. So You Want to Start a Podcast asks the tough questions to help budding podcasters define and achieve their goals, including:

Why do you want to start a podcast?
Think about specifically why you want to start a podcast versus a blog, zine, YouTube channel, Instagram feed, or other media outlet. Find out if a podcast is really the best way to tell your story.

What is your show about?
For any advertiser, corporate partner, or press outlet, you need a snappy pitch. How would you describe what you want to do in two to three sentences?

Who is your podcast for?
Who are you trying to reach? How will your content and tone appeal to those listeners?

How is your show going to be structured?
Create a step-by-step map planning the show out. Think about length, segments, interviews, advice, news reads, and other aspects of successful podcasts you can adapt for your own.

With this motivational how-to guide–the only one on the subject available–you’ll find the direction you need to produce an entertaining and informative podcast and promote it to the right audience. So You Want to Start a Podcast gives you the tools you need to start a podcast–and the insight to keep it thriving.

System Failure is the third book in the thrilling adventure series,The Ghost Network, in which a diverse group of teenage hackers use their extraordinary abilities to fight a legendary tech icon who’s seeking total control over their bodies and minds.

Age Level: 11-14 | Grade Level: 5th and up

The gang are back in the Wolf’s Den and are finally ready to put their abilities toward forces for good. The threat of Roy Lykos has finally been put to rest . . .or has it? His tentacles of power may stretch further than John had initially thought.