Wired has updated its annual list of the best technology books to give as gifts, adding five titles that cover Apple’s manufacturing ties to China, the artificial intelligence boom, and the online far right. The roundup, published on October 13, 2026, recommends biographies, startup histories, and exposés for readers who want to understand how large technology companies came to shape modern life. Among the strongest picks is a biography of Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang.
That Nvidia book, The Thinking Machine, examines how the company turned graphics processing unit manufacturing for gaming into parallel processing, combining hardware and software to power the rise of artificial intelligence. The article notes that the book does not always portray Huang favorably, which offsets its founder-worship tone. Readers wanting a different account of Nvidia’s history are pointed to The Nvidia Way by Tae Kim.
The list also returns to older titles. The Soul of a New Machine, a Pulitzer Prize winner first published in 1981, goes inside Data General in the 1970s as it races to design and release a next-generation minicomputer. Its account of crunch, burnout, and management’s clashes with engineers still reads as prescient, according to the roundup.
Several entries examine the darker consequences of the industry. Doppelganger, by Naomi Klein, traces how Klein, a leftist journalist and climate activist, is confused with Naomi Wolf, now a prominent anti-vaxxer, and explores why wellness culture has converged with the far right. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson, looks at targets of internet shaming, including Jonah Lehrer and Justine Sacco. Bad Blood recounts the rise and collapse of Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The roundup also includes Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, released 19 days after his death, and Apple in China by Patrick McGee, which reports on Apple outsourcing nearly all gadget production to China and the fallout that followed. In the Plex, by Steven Levy, covers Google’s internal workings, while Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification argues that interoperability could counter the decline of online platforms.
Alongside the new entries, the article mentions guides to gifts for book lovers, cookbooks, and Kindles for readers shopping for the 2026 holiday season.
More company and startup news from TechManNews.
