by Donald Knuth

isbn: 1881526917
subject: Computing, Nonfiction
finished: Summer 1997

This is a great book; I strongly recommend it to anybody interested in computer science. Although Knuth discusses many topics, the focus of the book is the question "what is computer science," and how does it relate to other disciplines, especially mathematics. A really cool essay analyzes the first program for a stored-program computer -- a sorting program written by Von Neumann. It's fascinating that even though the user interface and underlying hardware have changed beyond recognition since then, the machine language has evolved only slightly.