Books to Make Civilization Better

You might think I'm cheating on this, but after my previous posting on "books I'd save in the event civilization was collapsing," I realized that my list of books to make the future better isn't much different. However, instead of focusing on low-tech books concentrating on morality or how people might think, I would add a few books that assume civilization will remain high-tech and that we can progress even farther than we are now. So without further ado, here's my list:

Non-Fiction and Reference

• The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, Robert Zubrin
• Cities in Space, edited by Jerry Pournelle
• Far Frontiers, edited by Jerry Pournelle
• The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil (with a few reservations, of course)
• Engines of Creation, Eric Drexler
• The High Frontier, Gerard K. O'Neill
• N-Space, by Larry Niven
• Playgrounds of the Mind, by Larry Niven
• The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray
• Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl
• Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis
• Mining the Sky, John S. Lewis
• Moonrush, Dennis Wingo
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
• Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship, George Dyson

Fiction

• Ringworld, Larry Niven
• Green Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
• Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke
• A Case of Conscience, James Blish
• The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
• More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
• The World at the End of Time, Frederik Pohl
• Mining the Oort, Frederik Pohl
• Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
• Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

Your additions/thoughts are welcome. I'd be particularly interested in seeing not just what others would choose, but why.