Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.
I’m not sure how much of backstory of this [affiliate link] book I understood when I first read it, but I enjoyed the ride so much that I ended up doing some research into parts of the story. This enhanced my appreciation of the book, since Stephenson had clearly done the same research!
Stephenson’s later books took this mingling of fiction and history and science to the next level, but this was the first of his books that I read and, in my mind, is still the sweet spot.
I nearly added “In the Beginning was the Command Line” in this twenty books list. I didn’t, so I’ll just leave that reference hanging here.