For the history of gaming, I would say give The Ultimate History of Video Games a read. It's probably one of the most complete histories and it's actually a fun read.
For design, two good books would be Game Design: Theory and Practice and Rules of Play. GD: Theory and Practice is a pretty easy read and isn't bad, just the guy who writes it (Ruchard Rouse, III) is so full of himself it isn't even funny. Rules of Play has some incredible information in it but it tries to be a little too acedmic and isn't exactly an easy read.
Making a Game Demo: From Concept to Demo Gold is another really good book. I know the guys that wrote it and they are both pretty awesome and the documentation chapter alone is worth the buy.
You don't need 30 books as long as you have four good ones. 
