Accidental Empires, by Robert X. Cringely (Penguin, £7.99 in UK)

If you've been watching the Channel 4 television series on the development of the personal computer industry in the US, Triumph of the Nerds, you'll be fascinated by this even chattier, more user-friendly account. Even if you aren't watching the series, the chances are you'll be fascinated anyway, since the dominance of the PC represents not Just a major triumph for American business but a cultural change of focus which affects even the most reluctant of us. Robert Cringely tells his tale well, with a clear head, a mildly irreverent attitude and a keen sense of the ridiculous. And if horror of horrors you don't know what MS-DOS stands for or why the future lies in client-server computing, don't worry. You will.