I received a copy of this book thanks to goodread's first reads. In Worm, Mark Bowden attempts to take the computer illiterate (myself included) deep into the inner-workings of the web. More specifically, he tries to illustrate just how delicate the internet that we all rely so heavily on actually is. The book tells the story of the Conficker (NOT confLicker thank-you-very-much) worm that silently invaded millions of computers with the power and potential to crash virtually every, and any site on the web (and possibly even the web itself).

While Bowden is a good author, and the subject matter of the book is timely and interesting, I could only give this one three stars. Why? Well, in the book, Bowden discusses the "glaze." This refers to the glazed look most people get when a true expert tries to explain how the internet works, or the danger of a computer virus or worm. The reality is that this is complicated stuff, and while it is kinda embarrassing that so few of us have any idea how it works, that's reality.

So even after Bowden tries to put his research and interviews into laymen's terms, and tried to give an ample history lesson build-up, I still frequently found myself re-reading passages trying to figure out what they meant. I'm lucky enough to be married to one of those few people who at least partially understands how the internet works, and I am oh so familiar with the "glaze." I fall victim to it pretty much every time my husband talks about his work. There were several passages in the book that I had to take to him and ask for clarification. The fact that his clarifications were far from clear gives you a good idea of just how hard Bowden had to work to create a book that had even a chance of success with the general populous.

So unfortunately, to make this book readable for us "normals" it had to be significantly translated. And somewhere in that translation, the danger, fervor and excitement surrounding the Conficker worm was largely lost.