You Are What You Read

There are a lot of inspirations in my life but books are certainly one of the most important one.

Books about science

• Superintelligence. Mindblowing.
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. A truly wonderful book.
• We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe - Popular science has never been better.
• Riemann’s Zeta Function. I’m still at chapter 2 after 2 years, but whatever.
• Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity. Same author as “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics”. Brilliant.
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
• The Millenium Problems
• Fermats Last Theorem

Work and Life and Everything In Between

• Inventors Dilemma - quite repetitive but the key message was mind-blowing to me.
• Getting things done - I have my own way of task management which doesn’t have to do much with GTD but I did learn a lot from it for sure.
• The Lean Startup - my biggest influence waaaayyy back then. Still quoting from it on a regular base.
• Rework - work less but smarter.
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - after reading this I realized that I was of a “fixed mindset” in so many areas I’d always considered myself to be open-minded. Taught me that “talent” is an illusion and an excuse.
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose - funny, witty and honest. Taught me the value of team culture.
• How Google Works - yes, there is some self-marketing happening here, but it still worth your while.
• Drive - that one was a real eye opener for me. What motivates us? Certainly not carrot and the stick.
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable - That one caught me of guard quite a few times. Realising that you’re showing those dysfunctions yourself can be a painful process
• Essentialism - Do less but better.
• It doesn’t have to be crazy at work - The voice of reason in a mad world.
• Measure What Matters - essential reading for everybody who wants to improve his personal and professional life by (properly) setting goals.
• Crucial conversations - Should have read this book 10 years ago.
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
• Start With Why
• Culture Map

Computer Science

• Building Microservices- There are quite a few good books out there about Microservices, but I consider this to be the bible of microservices.
• Practical Object Oriented Design - probably the best book I ever read about OOP.
• Clean Code - I don’t agree with quite a few chapters (especially regarding source comments. Don’t do them) but overall still a very good compilation.
• Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby - I have no idea if this style would really work with kids but it seems like worth a try given how bad most didactic books are.
• The pragmatic programmer - yes, today this is heavily dated material. Probably nobody would object nowadays that using a SCM is mandatory. But still one of the best books about programming.
• Understanding Computation - very weird book. Not sure I really understood it. On my re-read list.
• Head First Design Patterns - best book about design patterns with awesome examples, especially for absolute beginners. Should be a mandatory read for early CS classes.
• 7 Languages In 7 Weeks - without that, I’d have never heard about this nice little language called IO and I certainly wouldn’t have started to look into Prolog which influenced me heavily.
• Metaprogramming Ruby - best book about metaprogramming Ruby out there.
• Continuous Delivery - Agile Development in practice.
• Ship it - Agile Development in practice, part 2. Highly influential and still relevant.
• Domain Driven Design - I didn’t like its didactic style (I think the book should have stuck with a couple of recurring, simple examples) but I loved most of presented ideas.
• Exercises in Programming Style - Syntax matters. Semantics matter. And yes, style matters.
• Domain-Driven Design Distilled - “Distilled” says it all. The best primer I have seen so far.