Computer and Library Learning (Archived)

Of all the Toronto Public Library Blogs, the Computer and Library Learning Blog is probably the one that addresses actual books the least. In a mild attempt to redress this I'd like to write a bit about a book I finished recently, Stephen Levy's In The Plex.

Levy's previous work defines the genre of tech writing. His book Hackers not only exposed the computer culture of places like MIT and the Homebrew Computer Club to the world, it helped definethe culture for those already immersed in it. Crypto, published in 2001, has been referred to as the "Soul of a New Machine" for cryptography referencing Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer winning piece of tech writing. In recent years Levy has focused less on the industry as a whole and increasingly on its individual players. Insanely Great and The Perfect Thing chronicle the rise of the Macintosh and the iPod respectively. Levy's latest work continues this trend with an in depth look at search giant Google. 

Like any good biographer Levy finds a narrative, and through the story Levy explains the how and why of Google's most successful products. This sets In The Plex apart from so many books recently published about Google. Levy's not about the What of Google. In The Plex is not a textbook but neither is it a puff piece describing the fancy frills and frolicking employees of a successful tech startup. The free gourmet restaurants and ubiquitous exercise balls are the setting, not the substance. Refreshing as well is that Levy isn't afraid to include technical terms to describe technical things. Fear not though if you don't know what an Eigenvector is, these terms serve more as set decoration, lending a greater depth to an already complete explanation. (If you do know what an Eigenvector, or don't but still want a more technical, yet still very readable, account check out the papers Lary Page and Sergey Brin published on the fundamentals of Google Search: Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine & The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web)

Levy, with access that seems astounding given Google's prior secrecy, is also able to fill in many of the gaps in what we already know of Google's storied relationship with China, providing  background and rationale for moves made by Google that felt at the time random and unpredictable.

If the book has one failing it's in Levy's attempt to describe Google's broader effect on the US government. In this final section a book until then entirely focused on the inner workings of Google, shifts to describe the actions of former Googlers. While still interesting it feels more descriptive, less explicative and more then a little out of place.

More than just a corporate biography, In The Plex is for anyone that's even the slightest bit curious about the online tools we use every day.