If you care about software, or you're just looking for good toilet reading material, you could do much worse than Joel Spolsky's The Best Software Writing I. While I disagree as often as I agree with Joel, his arrow strikes true when he says the ability to write effectively and engagingly is critical for programmers.* The book's collection of essays, taken from various blogs and such in 2004, demonstrates that you can have intelligent things to say and prevent your readership from sleeping. I make the low-risk prediction that this software book will be the most influential this year. And probably the next of the series in 2005. ;) Apparently, others agree. Want to learn to write? * Apparently, he doesn't even hire programmers who can't write well anymore.