The Cuckoo's Egg and Silicon Snake Oil were life changing for me. I was in middle school, snowed-in in upstate New York, on my computer most of the time. And th

The Cuckoo's Egg and Silicon Snake Oil were life changing for me. I was in middle school, snowed-in in upstate New York, on my computer most of the time. And the writing tips at the end of Silicon Snake Oil have stuck with me to this day. Cuckoo's Egg is a great thriller. Silicon Snake Oil was ahead of its time. The thing I liked about both is that they showed me what a rich life could be like beyond computers. And what was this magical place called Berkeley? Cuckoo's Egg is also something of an anecdote to 'imposter syndrome'. It showed how someone who was coming in to the field from the outside could trust their instincts and do something important. As others have said, a lot of us have come into this field from a wide variety of backgrounds. Stoll's books showed me how that can actually be an asset.