Recommended reading to become familiar with a number of topics. Books are listed within each section in the order I would suggest to get a deep and wide understanding (and when relevant, more recent first). Each list starts with general introductions and subsequent books layer on more complex or additional ideas. Textbooks not included; this list is for the interested layperson. Links are to full text where available, or to my reviews. The field is wide and deep; no single writer encompasses the whole. Histories of the idea of increasing progress are hard to find; here’s one.
Accelerating change and the future
- The Inevitable (Kevin Kelly, 2016)
- The Shape of the Future (Alex Planes) Full text.
- An Optimist’s Tour of the Future (Mark Stevenson, 2011) Review
- What Technology Wants (Kevin Kelly, 2010)
Singularity
- The End of the Beginning (Ben Goertzel, Ted Goertzel, Eds, 2015) Table of contents Full text
- The Coming Technological Singularity (Vernor Vinge, 1993) Full text
- The Second Machine Age (Brynjolfsson, 2014)
- Rapture for the Geeks (Richard Dooling, 2008)
- The Spike (Damien Broderick, 1997) Review
- The Singularity is Near (Ray Kurzweil, 2006) Review
- Singularity Hypotheses (Amnon Eden, Editor, 2013)
Transhumanism
- Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity (R.U. Sirius, 2015)
- A History of Transhumanist Thought (Nick Bostrom, 2005) Full text
- Democratic Transhumanism (James Hughes) Full text
- Citizen Cyborg (James Hughes, 2004)
- The Transhumanist Reader (More and More, 2013)
- The Path To Post-Humanity (Ben Goertzel, 2006) Full text
Critiques, caveats, considerations
- Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us (Bill Joy, 2000) Full text
- Program or Be Programmed (Douglas Rushkoff and Leland Purvis, 2011)
- The Shallows (Nicholas Carr, 2010)
- You Are Not A Gadget (Jaron Lanier, 2010)
- Who Owns the Future? (Jaron Lanier, 2013)
- Digital Barbarism (Mark Helprin, 2009)
Understanding technology
- Technology Matters (David Nye, 2006) Review
- The Nature of Technology (W. Brian Arthur, 2009) Review
- Imagined Worlds (Freeman Dyson, 1999)
- Visions of Technology (Richard Rhodes, 1999)
Computer science, information theory
- The Information (James Gleick, 2011) Review
- Turing’s Cathedral (George Dyson, 2012)
- Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hofstadter, 1980)
- Darwin Among the Machines (George Dyson, 1999)
- Envisioning Information (Edward Tufte, 1990)
Artificial intelligence
- Machines of Loving Grace (John Markoff, 2015)
- Between Ape and Artilect (Ben Goertzel, 2013)
- Our Final Invention (James Barrat, 2013)
- Beyond AI (J. Storrs Hall, 2007)
- How to Create a Mind (Ray Kurzweil, 2012) Review External summary
- Artificial General Intelligence (Ben Goertzel, 2010)
Medicine and health care
- The Patient Will See You Now (Eric Topol, 2015) Review
Synthetic biology, genetics, genomics
- Regenesis (George Church, 2012) Review
- Life at the Speed of Light (Craig Venter, 2013)
Robotics
- Flesh and Machines (Rodney Brooks, 2002)
- We, Robot (Mark Stephen Meadows, 2010)
Nanotechnology
- Radical Abundance (Eric Drexler, 2013)
- A Matter of Size (National NanoTech report, 2006) Full text
- Unbounding the Future (Eric Drexler, 1991) Full text
- Engines of Creation (Eric Drexler, 1986) Full text
Earth, climate change, sustainability, ecology
- Global Weirdness (Climate Central, 2012)
- Here on Earth (Tim Flannery, 2010)
- Whole Earth Discipline (Stewart Brand, 2009) Book site with notes
- Sustainable Energy (David MacKay, 2009) Full text
- Hacking the Earth (James Cascio, 2009)
- The Long Thaw (David Archer, 2010)
- The Rough Guide to Climate Change (Robert Henson, 2006)
- Physics for Future Presidents (Richard Muller, 2008)
Social commentary, activism, and living in changing times
- Approaching the Future; 64 Things You Need to Know Now for Then (Ben Hammersley, 2012)
- The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change (Al Gore, 2013) External summary
- Hybrid Reality (Parag and Ayesha Khanna, 2012) Review
- Abundance (Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, 2011) Review
- Worldchanging (Alex Steffen, 2011)
- Release 2.0 (Esther Dyson, 1997)
- The Lights in the Tunnel (Martin Ford, 2009) Review
- Tomorrow Now (Bruce Sterling, 2003)
- Scrolling Forward (David Levy, 2001)
Consciousness, mind, spirit
- The Unification of Spirit and Science (Ben Goertzel, 1996) Full text
- The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul (Rudy Rucker, 2005) Full text
- The Future History of Consciousness (David Hutchinson, 2012) Full text
Neurology, cognitive science, philosophy of mind
- Natural-Born Cyborgs (Andy Clark, 2003) and Supersizing the Mind (2011)
- Beyond Boundaries (Miguel Nicolelis, 2011)
- World Wide Mind (Michael Chorost, 2011)
Fiction, speculation, commentary
- The History of the Future in 100 Objects (Adrian Hon, 2013)
- Digital Rapture (Kelly & Kessel, Ed, 2012) Review
- The Fractal Prince (Hannu Rajaniemi, 2012) Review
- Accelerando (Charles Stross, 2005) Review Full text
- Unleashing the Strange (Damien Broderick, 2009)
- Year Million (Damien Broderick, editor, 2008)