Unbound This story is available exclusively to Insider subscribers.Become an Insider and start reading now.Digging up dirt on everything from meme stocks to crypto, 2022 will be a big year for tech books.Authors include Apple veteran Tony Fadell, podcaster Paris Marx, and journalist Johann Hari.We broke down the 22 books on tech to watch out for in 2022 – check them out below.
2022 looks set to be a blockbuster year for books on Big Tech.
As COVID-19 once again forces millions around the world to stay at home, what better time could there be to brush up on the inside stories, secret scandals, and ingenious innovations from Silicon Valley and beyond?
Highlights include Spencer Jakab’s “The Revolution That Wasn’t”, which reveals the inside story of the Reddit meme stocks that sent Wall Street into a tailspin at the start of the year, “The Power Law” by Silicon Valley stalwart Sebastian Mallaby, and a guide to online dating from the creator of viral Instagram account @Beam_me_up_softboi .
Check out our 22 books for 2022 below: ‘House of Wirecard’ picture alliance/Getty Images
Author: Dan McCrum
Summary: In June 2020, Wirecard, Germany’s audacious fintech giant, was forced to file for insolvency after it admitted around $2 billion was “missing.”
In “House of Wirecard”, McCrum will reveal in detail just how he and a crack team of fellow Financial Times reporters uncovered perhaps Europe’s biggest-ever corporate fraud scandal.
Publisher: Penguin ‘The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup’
Author: Evan Hughes
Summary: “The Hard Sell” documents the rise and fall of Insys Therapeutics, an American pharmaceutical company founded in 1990, which fell into disrepute amid the opioid crisis of recent years.
Critics have compared Hughes’ deep dive to John Carreyrou’s excruciating account of Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos in “Bad Blood”, with Publishers Weekly dubbing it a “powerful indictment of abhorrent industry practices.”
Publisher: Doubleday
Release date: January 18, 2022 ‘Internet for the People’ Verso
Author: Ben Tarnoff
Summary: In “Internet for the People”, Ben Tarnoff – a cofounder of Logic Magazine – argues the internet as we know it today is broken, and there’s only one solution: de-privatization.
Set to hit shelves in June, Tarnoff’s book calls for the abolition of tech giants like Google and Facebook’s “walled gardens,” and provocatively argues that the only way to build a better internet is to put it in the hands of the people.
Publisher: Verso
Release date: June 14, 2022 ‘The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century’
Author: Jamie Susskind
Summary: The award-winning author of “Future Politics” is back, this time with a treatise on the digital age inspired by the great political essays of the past.
Carly Kind, director of the AI-focused Ada Lovelace Institute, says the book is a must-have for “anyone wondering how law and governance can reshape Big Tech.”
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Release date: July 5, 2022 ‘AI on Trial’ Bloomsbury
Authors: Mark Deem and Peter Warren
Summary: A team-up between commercial litigator Mark Deem and AI researcher and writer Peter Warren, “AI on Trial” promises to ask the questions we’re all thinking when it comes to this ever-present new technology, including: Who owns AI? Can we trust AI? And, should AI come with its own set of rights and responsibilities?
Publisher: Bloomsbury Professional
Release date: May 12, 2022 ‘Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention’
Author: Johann Hari
Summary: For his latest book, bestselling author Johann Hari went on a three-year journey to try and understand why our attention spans are getting shorter, the role of technology, and what we can do about it.
Set to be a surefire hit, fans of Hari’s new book include Stephen Fry, Naomi Klein, and Hilary Clinton, the latter of whom described it as ringing “the alarm bell for what all of us must do to protect ourselves, our children, and our democracies.”
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release date: January 6, 2022 ‘Road to Nowhere’
Author: Paris Marx
Summary: In “Road to Nowhere”, Canadian technology writer Paris Marx – host of the award-winning “Tech Won’t Save Us” podcast – takes aim at Silicon Valley’s vision for the future of transport.
From Elon Musk to Uber, Marx takes aim at those seeking to permanently upend the way we interact with transport networks, and offers some fresh ideas on how transportation might prioritize the poorest and most marginalized people in our society.
Publisher: Verso
Release date: July 5, 2022 ‘Is This Love or Dopamine?: A Deeply Unofficial Study of Dating in the Digital Age’
Author: Iona David
Summary: In this “hugely entertaining and deeply essential exploration of modern dating practices”, Iona David – creator of the viral Instagram account @Beam_me_up_softboi – walks readers through everything from how to make the first move, to what it means when a man quotes Jack Kerouac at you.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release date: May 12, 2022 ‘Girl Online: A User Manifesto’
Author: Joanna Walsh
Summary: In this “profound and moving” account of what it’s like to be a girl online, Joanna Walsh guides readers through unwritten terms and conditions women face when they’re on the internet, how they’re forced to commodify themselves, and effectively pay for the space they take up “with accounts of personal experience.'”
Publisher: Rough Trade
Release date: 10 May, 2022 ‘The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future’ Allen Lane
Author: Sebastian Mallaby
Summary: Using his unrivaled access to some of the most successful venture capitalists in the world, bestselling author James Mallaby sketches out the behind-the-scenes story of the risk-takers that bet the house on the biggest companies in the world, from Google through to SpaceX and Alibaba.
Publisher: Penguin
Release date: Janury 25, 2022 ‘The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze’ PublicAffairs
Author: Laura Shin
Summary: In her debut book, former Forbes senior editor Laura Shin walks readers through the inside story of the ongoing cryptocurrency craze, and promises to expose the market for what it really is: “a deeply personal struggle to influence the coming revolution in money, culture, and power.”
Publisher: PublicAffairs ‘Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet’ Unbound
Author: Richard Moss
Summary: Having raised the money to publish his first book via crowdfunding platform Unbound , gaming obsessive Richard Moss is back with his latest effort, “Shareware Heroes”.
Publisher: Unbound ‘Technology is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics’
Author: Stephanie Hare
Summary: In her upcoming book, technology researcher Stephanie Hare attempts to address “one of the most vexing problems facing humans today”, namely: how can we get the most out of technology, while causing as little harm as possible?
Publisher: London Publishing Partnership .
