In what ways? From an ethical perspective, books like Orwell's famous 1984 are good reads that can help reflecting on privacy and its implications on societal

In what ways? From an ethical perspective, books like Orwell's famous 1984 are good reads that can help reflecting on privacy and its implications on societal and individual levels, helping decide on whether or not to participate in produciton of software that is antagonistic to data privacy. Also, Aprender a rezar na era da técnica of Tavares is a contemporary novel that can be useful in a similar vein. So also the Anarchist Banker of Pessoa. Maybe also the A Caverna of Saramago. All these books depict the clash of morality and modernity in some ways, and us as programmers are of a profession that is central to the change of times; thus, our perception of ethics is of immense importance to the furthering of the world. P.S.: also, given many of us publish open source stuff and write blogs etc., reading some literature will always help regardless of whether the contents are relevant or not. I observe from various past threads and this one that the crowd here really likes sci-fi novels and self-help stuff, and also biographies to some extent; but the rest of literature is not as popular. Certainly many lack the time, but reading a 200-300 page novel in a week or two should still be possible even with a very tight schedule (hint: less driving and more public transport helps, if available).