Thirst

Written by: Varsha Bajaj

First line: Sanjay and I sit on the top of the hill and stare out at the huge, never-ending Arabian Sea.

Why you should read this book: In the poorest parts of Mumbai, where Minni lives with her parents and older brother, so much depends on access to the communal water source, which is limited to certain hours and requires long waits in line to collect this precious resource. Even worse, although the poor people in Minni's neighborhood use less water than anyone else, criminals are stealing their water, and, worse still, Minni's brother witnesses the theft and has to leave town to protect his own life. Then her mother gets sick and has to leave as well, and now Minni has to balance all her mother's work, including fetching water, with the life she wants to have, going to school and taking extra-curricular computer classes.

Why you shouldn't read this book: This is a harsh reality.

Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small

Written by: Dr. Jess Wade and Melissa Castrillón

First line: Look around your home. 

Why you should read this book: In kid-friendly language and illustrations, this book offers an introduction to the concept of nanotechnology, beginning with a very basic explanation of atoms, molecules, and materials science. From there, it demonstrates how modern scientists can artificially manipulate naturally occurring molecules, such as graphite, to create materials with completely different properties, such as graphene. It goes on to suggest potential uses for future nanotechnology, and concludes that the child reading this book could unlock the secrets of nanotechnology in the future.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's for very young readers. Kids over the age of eight with any interest in science will likely want more information than this book can provide.

The Old Drift

Written by: Namwali Serpell First line: Zt. Zzt. ZZZzzzZZZzzzzZZZzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzZZZzzzzzZZZzzzzo'ona. 

Why you should read this book: A multi-generational epic steeped in history, tinted with magical realism and afrofuturism, narrated by mosquitoes (maybe), and framed by the lifespan of the Kariba Dam, The Old Drift covers more than a century of struggle, following the lives of three families in Zambia. Characters are born, grow, rebel against their parents' mistakes, make similar mistakes to the ones their parents made, have children, and the cycle repeats, but time keeps thrusting them away from the past and into the future. Beautifully written, bursting with revelation, and peopled with compelling characters, this is a book that you can fall into and devour with gusto. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Occasionally, I found some of the ways it jumped around in time as characters appears in each others' arcs a little frustrating, but that's probably on me.

Ready Player One

Written by: Ernest Cline

First line: Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.

Why you should read this book: In a future so bleak that everyone prefers to spend the vast majority of their lives jacked in to the virtual reality world known as the OASIS, the only beacon of hope for many young people is the contest set up by the OASIS's creator: solve a series of puzzles based on '80s pop culture knowledge and become the heir to the creator's tremendous fortune. Five years after the announcement, no one's solved a single puzzle, but Wade, impoverished and with very few of the resources needed to explore the OASIS, finally gets lucky. What follows is a break-neck journey through landscapes real, imaginary, and remembered, as Wade, his online friends, and an evil corporation race to reach the end of the quest and learn who will control the OASIS.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Oh, my god, the exposition. So. Much. Exposition.

The Case of Alan Turing: The Extraordinary and Tragic Story of the Legendary Codebreaker

Written by: Eric Liberge and Arnaude Delaland

First line: Who am I?

Why you should read this book: Framed by the knowledge of his suicide and colored with the theme of the poisoned apple, this book tells the life story of genius code breaker and computing machine inventor Alan Turing, whose work breaking the German's Enigma helped bring World War II to a close. Intelligent, unusual, and well aware of his queer identity from a young age, Turing lived by his own rules and made great leaps in technology while hiding his sexuality from Britain's draconian laws against same sex relations. This lovely book treats its subject with compassion and honesty.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You always root for the Nazis. 

John Henry: An American Legend

Written by: Ezra Jack Keats

First line: A hush settled over the hills.

Why you should read this book: A seamless, straightforward retelling of the classic American tall tale of John Henry, the man who could do the work of six men and dared to race, and beat, the steam engine, though it meant his death. Hearkening back to an era where an honest day's work was honored, it's a piece of Americana that might be overlooked by today's cell-phone using toddlers. Great story for kids learning to work with their hands and for parents wary of too much dependence on technology.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You fear that any celebration of the power of the worker will turn your kids into baby socialists.

I Am Princess X

Written by: Cherie Priest

First line: Libbie Deaton and May Harper invented Princess X in fifth grade, when Libby's leg was in a cast, and May had a doctor's not saying she couldn't run around the track anymore because her asthma would totally kill her.

Why you should read this book: In a really fast paced thriller, May Harper never fully accepted the death of her best friend, Libbie, even though she went to Libbie's funeral years ago. When she starts to see images of their character, Princess X, all over town and the Internet, she's convinced that Libbie is in trouble, in hiding, and desperately trying to send her a message. With the help of a disgraced computer hacker called Trick, May follows the clues left in a webcomic and races against time and a dangerous interloper they call the Needle Man in an effort to learn what really happened to her best friend.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your child is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.

Ghost Boy: The Miraculous Escape of a Misdiagnosed Boy Trapped inside His Own Body

Written by: Martin Pistorius

First line: Barney the Dinosaur is on TV again.

Why you should read this book: A remarkable page turner of a memoir, it's the autobiography of a boy who contracts an unknown degenerative neurological disorder in his twelfth year, loses half a decade to darkness, and then gradually reawakens, horrifyingly with a type of locked-in syndrome: he is well aware of everything going on around him, can see, hear, feel, and think, but is unable to move or communicate his cognizance in any way. At the age of twenty-five, a care worker decides that he is not a complete vegetable and Martin slowly begins to train his body and mind to employ adaptive technology and rejoin the world. Although he can neither walk nor talk, Martin is able to hold down a steady job, find the love of his life, and take his place as a fully fledged adult.

Why you shouldn't read this book:  You love Barney.

Cryptonomicon

Written by: Neal Stephenson

First line: Two tires fly.

Why you should read this book: An epic roller coaster ride, which bounces the reader back and forth between World War II and the early days of the Internet, North America and Asia, commerce and morality, it's a modern classic skirting the edges of speculative fiction: war story, jungle adventure, geek lore, and thriller, sewn together with the threads of cryptography and passion. With a vast cast of characters including geniuses, madmen, soldiers, and the strong, beautiful, intelligent women who draw them onward into achievement, this is the story of bricks of gold that have been hidden for decades, codes that have been encrypted and decrypted by experts, and the desires of humans for wealth, power, love, knowledge, and, sometimes, even higher callings. The writing is sharp and witty, humorous and esoteric, punctuated by language sophisticated to stimulate the mind of the most dedicated sesquipedalian while simultaneously being blue enough to shock your grandmother, a veritable treat for readers who love reading.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Incapable of comprehending complexity.

Feed

Written by: M. T. Anderson

First line: We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.

Why you should read this book: In a brutally frightening future, most well-off people receive an unstoppable virtual feed directly to their brain, with helpful advice about fashion, clothes, recreation, and anything else people want to know. In this world, education is corporately sponsored, the sky is just a projection on a dome overhead, animals are almost non-existant, and humanity is afflicted with incurable lesions. A group of kids have their feeds hijacked over spring break, and one of them finds his worldview disrupted when he falls for a girl who's decided to rebel against the tyranny of the feed.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Probably the most depressing dystopian novel I've ever read. Brilliant but nightmare-inducing.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Written by: Nicholas Carr

First line: In 1964, just as the Beatles were launching their invasion of America's airwaves, Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and transformed himself from an obscure academic into a star.

Why you should read this book: Dependence on computer technologies is changing the way humans think, perceive, and respond, and while some of these changes do seem to enrich our lives, not all of them are beneficial to mankind. The author begins by explaining how the brain works and how earlier advances in technology have changed our thought processes before sharing page after page of scientific research demonstrating that hyperlinks cause us to retain less information, Google is actively working to increase our page clicks, and that excessive dependence on the Internet is not making anyone smarter. A smart overview of a subject that is on many people's minds these days, this book neatly encapsulates the current research and distills it to its logical conclusion: that humans are not making machines more like themselves, but rather, that we are becoming more like the machines, and in doing so, losing some element of our humanity.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Too busy blogging, Skyping, checking your social networks, web surfing, and buying stuff off of Amazon.

Flashforward

Written by: Robert J. Sawyer

First line: The control building for CERN's Large Hadron Collider was new: it had been authorized in A.D. 2004 and completed in 2006.

Why you should read this book: The search for the Higgs Boson goes horribly wrong, resulting in everyone on earth blacking out for almost two minutes; many people experience visions of themselves twenty-one years in the future, and many people die in the blackout. Scientists Llyod Simcoe and Theo Procopides need to contemplate the results of their experiment, including their own culpability in the deaths of millions and their beliefs in the immutability of the future: Theo must work to solve his own murder, while Lloyd worries incessantly about an impending divorce from a woman he hasn't even married yet. Some interesting discussion of free will and physics in a sort of light speculative novel that comes off as Michael Crichton on laughing gas.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The writing is pretty bad, with distracting and redundant exposition and stuffy dialog, and some of the science fiction elements have not held up over time. Occasionally, a passage which is clearly meant to demonstrate the author's efforts to embrace a multi-cultural perspective come off as racist. With the exception of a few themes and elements, this novel has almost nothing to do with the television show it inspired.

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

Written by: Bill McKibben

First line: Imagine we live on a planet. Not our cozy, taken-for-granted earth, but a planet, a real one, with melting poles and dying forests and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms, scorched by heat. An inhospitable place.

Why you should read this book: Global warming, the author's data shows, is not a possible threat for our grandchildren, but a reality that has already begun transforming our lovely blue planet into a hot, dangerous, alien world. Climate change has been set into motion, and all calculations show that we have already surpassed the maximum level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (that would be 350 parts per million) necessary to keep thing comfy and verdant. After presenting pages and pages of chilling and disturbing evidence that we've screwed nature and she's going to screw us right back, McKibben describes what we need to do to survive on this new planet: cutting energy usage, investing in renewable, sustainable energy resources, and pulling back from unchecked and dangerous growth and globalization to create vibrant, functional, and self-reliant communities based agriculture, energy, and human networks (don't worry; we get to keep the Internet).

Why you shouldn't read this book: Possibly the most depressing work I have ever read; if you're enamored of your denial and think that oil and fossil fuels are the future, taking this book seriously could come as a real boot to the head.

Unplugging the Plug-in Drug

Author: Marie Winn

First line: "My problem with television began when Max was born and David was three years old," says Mary Taylor.

Why you should read this book: If you are concerned with the effect of video technology on your child's development, your home's atmosphere, or your own productivity, this book encourages you and everyone around you to turn the television off for a week. Complete with arguments for reduction of viewing time and plans to persuade those around you to participate in a "Turn-Off" during which an individual, family, class, school, or community all take the pledge not to watch and support each other with alternate activities and parties. Many appendices with resources, testimonials, handouts, and other materials help administrators turn these plans to reality.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't even own a TV.

iPhone: The Missing Manual Second Edition

Author: David Pogue

First line: If you'd never seen all the videos and photos of the iPhone, and you found it lying on someone's desk, you might not guess that it's a phone (let alone an iPod/Web browser/alarm clock/stopwatch/voice recorder/musical instrument).

Why you should read this book: Billed as "The book that should have been in the box (R)", this is a guide for digital immigrants--users over the age of thirty who harbor some essential distrust of modern electronics and are reluctant to play with new devices for fear of breaking them. If that description fits you, and you feel you are not getting the most out of your iPhone, this book will offer helpful hints about taking photos, forwarding your calls, understanding the meaning of the word "app", and removing plastic wrap and headphones to get the most out of your speakers, as well as demystify more complicated functions. Easy to read, not too condescending, with copious illustrations.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't have an iPhone. (Um...why did I read this book?)