The Hacker Crackdown is/was Bruce Sterling's first non-fiction book (he has written a 2nd one since, Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years) – essentially this is the sound of a successful author putting his fiction/SF work to the side, and writing a piece of classical, well-researched journalism on the hacker/phreak/cracker 'digital underground' of 1989/90; a crackdown which affected figures in his circle of acquaintances (not even for legal reasons, but for overreach and general hamfistedness of the agencies involved) and which he felt could just as well have caught him up in its sweep.
He portraits, in a very readable form, the beginning of computer crime, pre-Internet (ie with dial-up Bulletin Board Systems as main hub of these groups and communities!); with the Legion of Doom, Acid Phreak, and Phiber Optik (just to name a few handles which rang a bell from my time on the BBS scene… it's not that long ago, honestly!) and of Operation Sundevil and similar efforts by the law enforcement agencies. And it ends with the Well and the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation – something which profoundly affected and shaped the discussion and development of privacy and legal arrangements on the nascent Internet, and continues to do so.
Unseen Academicals is the 32nd book inSir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I do belive that neither the author nor the series need introducing here, no? Here we go:
The Unseen Academicals is the Unseen University's football team. Yes, the setting here is Football. Or Foot-the-Ball, as the Wizards call it, referring to the old Gentleman's game, which has, in classic Ankh-Morpokh manner, deteriorated into something bordering on Anarchy, a back-alley brawl, with a mix of players and spectators (and plenty of violence), known as 'The Shove'. Ever heard of an ancient (and still played) British game called 'The Ba'? Look it up... In the Royal Art Museum an ancient vase has been found in the cellars, depicting an ancient game of Football, and the rules it was played by. You know the kind of vase – the players are all in the nude, our museums have plenty of those, too (not depicting football, that one has yet to be found). Ankh-Morpokh calls it 'The Tackle' – bad pun alert! The Wizards, meanwhile, have realized that, every so often (er, rarely), they need to participate in a game of Football, sorry, Foot-the-Ball, to retain a rather large legacy. And, just coincidentally, Vetinary, Tyrant of Ankh-Morpokh, asks Archcancellor Ridcully to modernize the game along the lines of the ancient rules. And so they get started, in their typical manner.
Light on the Sound is the first book in Somtow Sucharitkul's acclaimed 'Inquestor' Trilogy (which runs to 4 books. See Douglas Adams for another example of counting series...). The book is, like the entire story arc, epic in scope, poetic in execution and tone, and generally rather a standalone (and standout) amongst all the books I've read so far.
The story plays of on the world of Gallendys, where the boy Kelver lives in the shadow of the Skywall – actually one side of a crater 100k (klomets, in the book) high, and thousands wide. Inside it live, we learn, an ancient, pre-human race of flying beings called 'Delphinoids' by the Inquest who rules the human dispersal. Also inside the skywall exist tribes of engineered humans – deaf and blind, so they don't have to see and hear the lightsongs of the Delphinoids which they call Windbringer.
This book appears, at least at first, much simpler, more linear, and with a much smaller scope than the first book in the series (Shikasta, to give it its short name). It deals, on the surface, with humans, their relationships, and with the society that shapes these relationships and is in turn shaped by them instead of the history of the world from prehistoric times until WWIII, set in a galaxy-spanning setting, as the first book did. There are always little hints that this is just a small part of something, that the larger setting is there, but just not focused on at the moment in the rush of emotions and conflicts.
The story setting is easily told – Al•Ith is the Queen of Zone 3, a self-centred, peaceful and egalitarian country, led by female 'Queens', with a society based on equality and communication. She is ordered, by the 'Providers' (large picture warning! Although they are never specified, explained, or described, we never see more than the actual characters see and know...) to marry the 'King' of Zone 4, Ben Ata. Zone 4 is everything Zone 3 is not – it appears, at least to Al•Ith, to be barbarian, despondent and poor, and solely based on hierarchy, war, and the army which every single male in the Zone belongs to. You can imagine that neither of these exponents of their respective Zones are happy with this arrangement (but rebellion against the Providers is unthinkable, it appears), so they are thrown together, thrown into a personal and collective crisis, and their Zones, of which they are but an expression, are shaken up together with theri prime exponents.
Scratch Monkey is the early Charles Stross novel which never was, or, at least, hasn't been so far. It was written 1988-93, and nearly saw the light of day in 94, but things didn't go to plan, as Charlie outlines under the title "How not to sell a Novel" on his Fiction Index page... As a result this is available as a download from his website (book link at the bottom), under a Creative Commons License. When reading this it is worth remembering that this is most likely an edit/review/final edit cycle (or something similar) away from a publishable form - you're looking at an unpolished stone so to say, the final produce would (will?) be different. Scratch Monkey is a post-Singularity novel, with free-roaming, superior-to-human AIs (Superbrights) and their progenitors, the Ultrabrights, also on the loose. We follow the story of Oshi Adjani, who works for Distant Intervention, who maintain and defend the Dreamtime, usually under the direction of a Superbright. A lot of this seems to be hands-on, bloody intervention on the ground, reminiscent of Bank's Special Circumstances in the Culture universe.
Tales of Ordinary Madnessis a collection, one of many, of Charles Bukowski's short stories. This is classic Bukowski, consisting of a range of stories spanning the basic factotum style of some of his books, through embellished and re-worked episodes to completely fictional efforts which, at most, were inspired by something which happened to him.
The majority of the stories here are clearly autobiographical in outlook (and mostly in content, too, I guess). Sometimes he uses his real name, sometimes his alter ego Hank Chinaski, which he used in his novel 'Post Office', besides a number of other publications. Nearly everything is written in 1st person, although in a variety of styles and approaches.
The Hacker Crackdown
Unseen Academicals
Light on the Sound
The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five
Tales of Ordinary Madness 
