Read all about it when taking a break from gizmos

NET RESULTS:One of these books wrapped underneath the tree would make a technology lover very happy

IF YOU’RE thinking about a holiday gift (or maybe a present for yourself) that will delight a technology lover but isn’t yet another gadget, you can’t beat a great book. Okay, I know that many of you can never have enough gadgets, gizmos, software, gaming consoles and other items from the land of bits and bytes, but there comes a point when it is lovely to stretch out on the sofa with a good read, especially when it’s cold outside.

Here is a selection of excellent, thought-provoking books with a technology theme that came out in 2010. One of these tucked into a stocking, would make a technology lover very happy. Or treat yourself!

Tom Chatfield: Fun Inc.: Why Play is the 21st Century’s Most Serious Business (Virgin Books)

So you thought computer games are just for kids? Well, if you like technology, most likely you don’t, but this book will give you great insights into why gaming is one of the most fascinating areas of entertainment (not to mention one of the largest and most valuable entertainment sectors).

Chatfield is good at puncturing common misapprehensions about gaming while also indicating just how much this area is going to be part of our (serious) future.

Clay Shirky: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Allan Lane)

Shirky, the author of the best-selling Here Comes Everybody(about the impact of "the crowd" gathered online) is consistently one of the most thoughtful and insightful writers on the ways digital technologies are changing us and our world – and allowing us to change the world. His new book traces the ways in which he believes our "cognitive surplus" – our post-industrial inventiveness, goodwill and brainpower that has had few outlets – is going to be harnessed in groundbreaking ways when matched with the power of the internet.

Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger: Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age (Princeton University Press)

Human society has developed over thousands of years within a framework where forgetting is the norm. Hence we are allowed to make mistakes, commit youthful indiscretions, hold controversial opinions and have spats and then make up without forever having the decisions of our past etched in stone. But the internet remembers everything, already creating problems for job seekers, activists, and personal relationships, but with long-term implications for personal privacy, and for society. A fascinating philosophical argument.

Kevin Kelly: What Technology Wants (Viking)

Wiredmagazine editor Kelly always seems to have something provocative up his sleeve, and this new book, which argues that technology "wants" to permeate culture and society in certain ways, is no exception. Kelly says we are at a state of globalised technology development which he terms "the Technium", where technology evolves like a biological organism, "wanting" to innovate in fresh ways.

Shane Harris: The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State (Penguin Books)

An essential book for understanding the ways in which the US security agencies have worked silently towards imposing a surveillance state. What began as the work of a few mavericks, generally opposed by lawmakers in the US, has become a wholesale approach towards “security”, with the September 11th, 2001, attacks on America used as an excuse for plans to store huge digital dossiers on every citizen.

Excellent background for the emerging struggle between security, privacy and liberty and understanding the secretive drive for data retention in the US – and Ireland.

Steven Johnson: Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (Allen Lane)

Johnson is a highly readable science writer with many other books under his belt. In this one, he tackles innovation – where does it develop from, what triggers it, how does it grow? He defines seven patterns of innovation in this “natural history of innovation”.

A good one for the thinker, entrepreneur, developer – and of course those who have made the word “innovation” a centrepiece of Government and agency policy in Ireland.

Nicholas Carr: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (Atlantic Books)

Carr has written a deliberately controversial and challenging book that will likely split a readership between those who believe this book illuminates some discomfiting realities about the results of extended internet use, and those who see it as infuriatingly Luddite in its wariness about where technology is taking us. A great book for a good pub argument!

Julian Dibbel, ed.: The Best Technology Writing 2010 (Yale University Press)

The fifth in a series, this is a fantastic collection of essays that should make any technology fan happy. It includes a wide range of sharp writing from many of the key thinkers about the area, including Clay Shirky and Steven Johnson, whose own books are noted above. The collection includes everything from an appreciation of Twitter to a consideration of the placebo effect in the pharmaceutical industry and from a profile of PayPal and Tesla founder Elon Musk to a treatise on the politics of breastfeeding gadgets.

Kathy Fish and Matt Bell, eds: Best of the Web 2010 (Dzanc Books)

And, finally, something a bit different, a collection of writing found on the web as opposed to writing about the web.

This little volume contains all sorts of online literary found objects, including poetry and prose, short stories and curious hypertext. One for dabbling in throughout the year.