Well, for nerd books, "Modern Operating Systems" by Andrew Andrew Tanenbaum. It was until years later that I realized just how much I had learned from that book, and the consolidated notes from the Usenet flame war between him and Linus Torvalds.
There's just so much "how does all this shit actually work" in there ....
There's just so much "how does all this shit actually work" in there ....