UNIX

Brian Kernighan provides an enjoyable read detailing the creation of Unix.

I really enjoyed the "behind the scenes" stories that describe the whys & hows that led to the development of some of the programs and tools we use to this day, such as: pipes, grep/egrep, the C language itself, the Bourne shell, Make, Sed & Awk, and on and on!

The mini biographies of the many talented folks (e.g., Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIlroy) who were instrumental in creating Unix was a fund read as well.

A fascinating journey through the development of the Unix operating system (and related tools and languages, such as C), told by someone that was there.

It does not go into much technical detail, though there are some source listings here and there, mostly focusing on an overview of the technical sides, as well as the social and organizational aspects that contributed to an environment of innovation.

The story of how such an influential system, that still echoes loudly in almost all major OSes today, is fascinating, helped along by an author that knows how to write about advanced subjects in an understandable and enjoyable manner.