[griffinheart]

I would read that as the "red book in algorithms" this is probably because of the famous OpenGL red book, so now we refer to the "fundamental" book in an area as the red book.

In a sense yes its "wrapped up in a particular culture" I guess the culture that exposed me to this "red book" was a CS bachelors that included graphical programming as a course.

Edit: If someone from google said to read the red book as a helper for interviewing I would probably return with "wait you mean the OpenGL book?"