This was the book that captured the essence of why the web made things different and had a huge impact on many of us when it was first published ten years ago. The writers managed to put their finger on what was important and have been proved right over thelast ten years in so many ways. The link is to the recent anniversary edition which includes new chapters.

Yochai Benkler has produced the most comprehensive and convincing attempt I have seen to make sense of the behaviours of the social web and how they are likely to affect economcs and politics in the future. This thorough book acts as a wonderful primer for the world of networked communications.

Lawrence Lessig's book is essential reading if you want to understand the power of the code that things like Google and YouTube. The need to understand what lies behind functionality we take for granted becomes more important as we rely more and more heavily on web tools. What decides what gets to the front page of Google and why?

 A real page turner about the parallel world of relationships and networks that really runs businesses alongside, and sometimes in competition with, the formal, structured "managed" image they present.