Computing Books

Computer games aren’t just for teenage boys locked in their bedrooms says author and former Prospect senior editor Tom Chatfield – they are vital tools for social development. Here he selects five of the best books on the theory behind games, and the culture that grows up around them.

The book critic and technology columnist for Time magazine says there's a level on which the Internet is a mass tool for pacification. It allows people to play out their lives in a fantasy context, which is very politically unthreatening. He picks the best books on the World Wide Web.