Does technology have a place in book lovers’ day?

Happy Book Lovers’ Day everyone!

This esteemed holiday is celebrated around the world and encourages you to put away your technological distraction and pick up a book.

But I’d argue these days, technology and books can be one and the same. A book can be digital and print.

If you’re like me, and enjoy reading on the move, your kindle, your iPad, your phone is your book. It’s convenient, cheaper and much more efficient.

In the last 10 years or so, we’ve seen an uptick in the use of eBooks, like Amazon’s kindle. Plus it’s recently been revealed that education publisher Pearson is set to phase out print text books.

Student Joanna, who had to lugg around the Complete Works of Shakespeare every day, really supports this.

However, avid Kindle fan I may be, I’m always pleased to see the news that print books are not dead.

Print books make great gifts, you can lend them out – and they smell great.

Last year, sales grew 2.1%, and 190m books were sold. Becoming by Michelle Obama sold a whopping half a million copies in the first two months!

I think there’s space for both eBooks and print in our hearts – so maybe we should rename ‘Book Lovers’ Day’ to ‘people who love reading day’? I’ll work on it.

Anyway, in the spirit of this great holiday we asked Harvardians to pull together their favourite tech books. There are even a few favourite fictions in there too!

Happy reading everyone!

Harvard’s Top Tech Picks:

Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff

Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine by Hannah Fry

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Neuromancer by William Gibson

We Are Anonymous by Parmy Olson

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The People vs Tech: How the Internet is Killing Democracy (and how we save it) by Jamie Bartlett

The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett