The Punkt. Library
The Punkt. Library is a selection of books that have inspired us along the way – since Punkt. was founded in 2008, and before. It has been part of our presence at a number of design fairs and trade shows over the years, for example the Punkt. Design Terrace at the Salone del Mobile in Milan.
The Library helps explain what we do and why we do it, and we present it as a contribution to the wider debate about technology and its rôle in society: the human value of elegant design, and the importance of an electronic device being a tool that works for its owner. Additional suggestions are very welcome. Most of the texts are in English, but there are a handful in other European languages.
They’re all real books, with pages, a cover and a spine: plenty of studies have shown that reading physical texts is still the most effective way of taking in what an author is saying. We could have had two separate lists, one for design and one for what technology is doing in the world. But actually, the latter is a subset of the former: any designer will be keenly aware of what a product is meant to do.
We have included the publisher’s description for each book, plus a link to their website at the end, but bear in mind that some books have different publishers in different countries. Books may also have appeared in different editions over the years.
If you’re interested in the background to Punkt.’s design work, Jasper Morrison’s shop has a number of titles available in addition to those listed by us. You can view them here.
Support your local bookshops! They pay local taxes, and are part of the community. You can find a bookshop and/or order online via the following organisations:
- uk.bookshop.org (UK)
- booksellers.org.au (AU)
- booksellers.co.nz (NZ)
- findabookstore.ca (CA)
- indiebound.org (USA)
And maybe develop a library habit?
The AI Mirror
Since ChatGPT´s release in November 2022, the following 12 months or so saw the world seemingly go off the rails as the media landscape gave way to technologist ‘prophets’ taking centre stage, promoting the infinite, and the most dystopian, possibilities of AI.
Why Privacy Matters
Privacy, that human right so fundamental to our open and free society, is under massive threat in our current world path.
Low Tech Life: A Guide to Mindful Digital Minimalism
Everything you need to know about becoming a digital minimalist.
The Sleep Prescription: Seven Days to Unlocking Your Best Rest
How to sleep without popping pills.
How to Stay Smart in a Smart World
A book that explains why we need to use our brains now more than ever.
Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets
Brett Scott’s Cloudmoney takes a detailed look at the prosecutors and beneficiaries of the ‘war on cash’ and the march towards non-physical living.
What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry Into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley
A witty account of how Silicon Valley views itself.
100 Things We’ve Lost To The Internet
What we’ve given up for screens and why it is worth stepping away from them from time to time.
Four Thousand Weeks. Time and How to Use It
Time management for mortals.
My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open
An exploration of the array of new words created to refer to the new situations that have arisen (and generally become normalised) as a result of the creation of mass computer technology. These situations were not planned…
On the Road
The first iteration of hipsters, in the late 1940s and early 1950s… A book that helped shape the world which followed.
The Creativity Code: How AI is learning to write, paint and think
Mechanical culture is much cheaper than the human version, and perfectly adequate for a post-nuance transhuman age. Probably better.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Digital Minimalism
A practical guide to outwitting the addiction specialists who have you in their sights.
The Attention Merchants
A description of the people who rent out your focus.
New Dark Age
Slow-motion train crash. Do you get off?
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media
What social media is, how it works and what it is for.
Driverless Cars
The transition to self-driving cars seem to be arriving in much the same way as a computer operating system update does. What could possibly go wrong?
How to be Free
A joyful blueprint for a simpler and freer way of life. Mediaeval in places.
Bored and Brilliant
The benefits of boredom.
Irresistible
A practical guide to coming out the other side.
Why We Sleep
The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. The clock is ticking.
The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time
How to get ahead by getting your head down.
The World Beyond Your Head
A book about “our scatterbrained ennui”.
World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech
The downside of convenience.
A Book of Things
A chance to find out what lies behind JM’s work.
Flow
How to get going.
Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern
One of Britains’ greatest industrial designers.
Thinking Fast and Slow
A book about intuition and logic. But this time, written by a Nobel Prize-winner.
The Shallows
The Shallows is, writes Slate, “a Silent Spring for the literary mind.
The Glass Cage
“Automation weakens the bond between tool and user not because computer-controlled systems are complex but because they ask so little of us.”
Reclaiming Conversation
Reviving the fading art of conversation, in our age of echo chambers. Sequel to the spectacular Alone Together.
The Circle
Novel about a young woman who gets a job in a giant tech corporation; made into a film in 2017.
Digitale Erschöpfung
Ständig erreichbar, immer unter Strom, niemals im Feierabend – Markus Albers zeigt uns, wie wir endlich wieder abschalten und dabei produktiver werden.
Hatching Twitter
Such a good read. Written by a journalist who interviewed everyone at Twitter about its early days. It has all the right ingredients for a great story: power, drama, betrayals, and more.
The Organized Mind
More than a self-help book…Levitin’s insights into sleep, time, socializing and decision-making are profound.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Physical clarity, mental clarity.
Hamlet’s Blackberry
Draws on the technological past and great thinkers such as Shakespeare and Thoreau.
The End of Ownership
A defence of permanence, for sanity.
The Ambivalent Internet
For students of the weird, the wacky and the annoying.
Dragnet Nation
What “the connected world” really means.
Personal Connections in the Digital Age
Aimed at “all students and scholars of media, communication studies, and sociology, as well as all those who want a richer understanding of digital media and everyday life”.
You are Not a Gadget
Particularly suitable for the technically-minded.
Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
The benefits of being able to move on.
The People’s Platform
A seminal dismantling of techno-utopian visions.
Alone Together
Technology has become the architect of our intimacies
The Inner History of Devices
This book made Punkt. a fan of Sherry Turkle.
The Laws of Simplicity
Ten laws of simplicity for business, technology, and design that teach us how to need less but get more.
Super Normal
Based on an exhibition created by the authors, that assembled 204 everyday products that each attain elegance and attractiveness without any element of ostentatiousness.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
The Society of the Spectacle
The 1967 classic. Very French, very now.
Brave New World
The ultimate explanation of how today’s world works, written in 1931.