This week Google announced the ambitious Google+ project, their latest foray into the social web. This provides me with a great opportunity to encourage you to read two very relevant books that will influence how you feel about Google+.

In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, And Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy
Steven Levy is a Senior Writer at Wired Magazine. In The Plex reads like the biography of Google, made possible by the rare access granted to Levy. In the book he reveals with clarity how Google came to be and in turn shows how the company works. He even describes the beginnings of project Emerald Sea, the code name for Google+. Levy also wrote an in-depth overview of the project on the day it launched. 

To further increase your curiousity here is Steven Levy in conversation with Kara Swisher of All Things D discussing the book:

The Filter Bubble, What The Internet Is Hiding From You by Eli Pariser
Eli Pariser noticed differences in search results based on an individuals past online history and set out to investigate why this was happening. In the following TED Talk from last February he shares what he discovered, giving you an overview of the book's content: