Recommended: Tubes

Andrew Blum's new book Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet is a delightful read. Have you ever wondered what physically happens to the bits that make up your last e-mail message when it goes out of your own modem? Blum takes us through the "tubes" (wires, fiberoptic cables, undersea cables, etc) and interchanges that route our message to its destination, but he takes us there not as a techi but as a writer, exploring the places and people involved with a writer's eye.