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This is my favorite introductory book on algorithms. It's very well-written, concise, and develops important concepts through problems. It also strikes a nice balance in presenting real mathematical content without beating you over the head with formality.

Douglas Hofstadter put some interesting thoughts on the parametric knob-twiddling approach to fonts and other domains of creative expression here:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/ftp/techreports/TR136.pdf

(Also covered in his Oct. '82 article in Scientific American, Variations on a Theme as the Crux of Creativity)

The woman is facing the wrong way in Vermeer's, isn't she?

The site maintainer for the 1988 verion, Paul Dourish, gives a counterargument in his preface ('...Unfortunately, in the process, [Raymond] essentially destroyed what held it together, in various ways: first, by changing its emphasis from Lisp-based to UNIX-based (blithely ignoring the distinctly anti-UNIX aspects of the LISP culture celebrated in the original); second, by watering down what was otherwise the fairly undiluted record of a single cultural group through this kind of mixing; and third, by adding in all sorts of terms which are "jargon" only in the sense that they're technical...'). At the very least, the 1988 version is livelier.

For more amusing grumpiness, see The Unix Hater's Handbook:

http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf

Some of the claims made about Ada are certainly mistaken, but there are also good arguments for genuine, important contributions. See, for example, Babbage historian Doron Swade's discussion of her insight into potential applications of the Analytical Engine beyond numeric calculation (beginning at 36:30):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5p_tBcrd0

By the way, a very good biography of Grace Hopper was published a few years ago:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/grace-hopper-and-invention-inf...