Books · Always three at a time
Library
What I'm reading right now (always three at a time, one of which I will probably abandon by Friday). What I keep going back to. What I'd lend to almost anyone.
Currently on the bedside
Working Backwards
Bryar & Carr
On Amazon's operating principles. Less impressive than the cult around it, but the chapter on PR-FAQs is genuinely useful.
The Mom Test
Rob Fitzpatrick
Re-read every six months. The shortest book about customer interviews and the only one I've ever actually applied.
A Pattern Language
Christopher Alexander
Picked up on a whim. Reading slowly, on Sundays. Will probably never finish, in the right way.
The shelf I'd lend to anyone
- The Pragmatic ProgrammerHunt & ThomasThe book I would put in every junior engineer's first-week kit. Re-read every two years.
- Don't Make Me ThinkSteve KrugStill the most useful UX book ever written. Disagree at your peril.
- The Mythical Man-MonthFred BrooksSoftware is mostly the same problems wearing different clothes. Brooks figured this out in 1975.
- The Design of Everyday ThingsDon NormanReads like it was written yesterday. Has aged better than most novels.
- RefactoringMartin FowlerThe only book that has made me a measurably better programmer.
- Working in PublicNadia EghbalOn open source, but really on every kind of public-facing creative work. Quiet, important.
- Let My People Go SurfingYvon ChouinardHow to run a company on principles when the principles cost money.
Periodic re-reads
- The Pragmatic Programmerevery two years
- Don't Make Me Thinkevery project kickoff
- The Mom Testevery six months
- A Pattern Languagein the winter, slowly
Why this list is short
I read fewer books cover-to-cover than I'd like to admit. Mostly I read in chunks. Mostly I don't finish. The few that I do are usually the ones that show up on this page.
Recommendations welcome. I will accept any book about software, cities, or food.