who dropped out of college and a pop star beloved by her Instagram following. It's one for the teens in your life, or the adults trying to understand them. -- C.I.

Permanent Record (Edward Snowden)

Despite sharing a title, this is certainly not the same mood as the young adult romance above. Instead, Edward Snowden's memoir is both a thriller and a reflection on the pervasiveness of big data. It charts his childhood instinct for gaming the system (case in point: changing the time on clocks in the family house to stay up late) as well as his path from the army to the CIA to becoming an NSA contractor. Then, of course, is the the play-by-play of his whistle-blowing. The memoir is a glimpse at what it took toin the history of coding and tech going much further back than the 1970s homebrew explosion in Silicon Valley. The book was originally published in 1985, and as a futurist, Rheingold tried to imagine what was coming next. That provides an interesting quirk, reading his predictions and perspective after the fact while he was in the middle of technology's still-emerging story. This updated version, released in 2000, has an afterward with interviews including some of the document's key players, helping to close the circle, at least for now. -- J.T.

Cult of the Dead Cow (Joseph Menn)

Hackers of the world unite and give Cult of the Dead Cow to the white hat on your gift list. This is a fantastic oral history of one of the world's most powerful