All I Want For Christmas Is (Books Recommendations)
You have probably heard one of the Christmas tunes a couple of times already during the last few weeks. What does it mean for us? Time to think about presents and time to think about how to spend your learning and development budget before it goes to waste. Maybe buy a book? For me, the biggest challenge is to select a worthy one, considering how many options are available (a lot) and how many books I can read (unlikely double digits in a year). That's why I appreciate it a lot when my friends and colleagues recommend me a book they've read. That’s why I want to share with you all the list of books I've read and found useful or entertaining. And I hope to hear your recommendations in the comments to expand my backlog 🤞
On March 30, 1936, at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a student choir directed by the American conductor of Ukrainian heritage, Peter Wilhousky, presented today’s world-famous “Carol of the Bells”. It was an English lyrics adaptation of “Shchedryk”, a Ukrainian New Year's song, arranged by composer and teacher Mykola Leontovych. The US premiere of “Shchedryk” took place on October 5, 1922, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, but Mykola Leontovych was murdered by a soviet-russian occupation agent one year earlier, in 1921.
But before the books list, I want to take a second and ask you to subscribe to this blog. Of course, if you want to read more from me. That's exactly how I interpret this number - 33 people already want to read what I write regularly, and that's a great motivation to continue. You are more than welcome to join our little group - the subscription means that you will receive an email every time I publish a new story, which usually happens every other week. If you are already subscribed - you can send a link to your friend or colleague, but my gratitude is already for you! 🤗
🕥 Programming + Time = Software Engineering
Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time
This book is a great inspiration for my blog. It lies perfectly at the intersection of programming, process organization, and tooling. If you want to explore the problem space outside of coding, it is the guide for you. Obviously, you don't need to copy Google's solution to every problem explained in the book, but it is worth thinking about how they apply to your team as some of them are still novices for most organizations.
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
In some sense, this is the sister book to the previous one. It dives deep into programming, process organization, and tooling specifically for reliably running a production system at the internet scale.
Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
However, if I have to choose one book on this topic I must say I enjoyed Release It! a bit more than SRE book. They both are good and have a different angle on the problem, but I recommend starting with this one.
💻 Just coding
xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code
The assumption that writing production code has rules and writing test code hasn’t because it is too easy is plain wrong. This is the most comprehensive guide on how to write good tests and it is worth time spent on reading 100%.
🧨 Making things happen
Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results
Very short and light yet very helpful book on setting goals using the OKR framework.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters
Also a short but very packed book on preparing good strategies.
Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (Theory in Practice)
A comprehensive guide on all tools to deliver results (making it happen) in case you work on something longer than a task (a several-month project) and not alone (within a team and organization).
📼 Silicon Valley Spectacle
Chaos Monkeys - Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
If you have seen a Silicon Valley HBO show, this is the same vibe in the form of a book with (allegedly) a real story inside.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Story of the fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes.
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
Uber’s and Travis Kalanick’s story that you first enjoy and then start questioning more and more.
That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea
With a much more positive attitude than the previous three, the story of Netflix as its co-founder Marc Randolph remembers it. It is the most interesting for his thoughts about personal life and happiness, how founding the company had a goal for him to fund his personal goals, and how he left the business once the goals were achieved.
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram
Story of Instagram including clashes of cultures after Facebook bought it. It also contains very interesting thoughts on how this one company transformed the world around us.
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s story that’s the most interesting for the fact that the internet was still quite young, so the early Amazon team had to invent or experience a lot of things that we consider common knowledge best practices today.
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
The story of Pixar with the focus on how to organize creative teams.
🎁 Non-technical bonus
How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
These two books will help you to be more mindful about your thinking process. Isn't it thinking what we do most of the time?
Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
Story from US Navy officer that will inspire you to build autonomous teams that don't rely on the managers, tech leads, and directors.
If you have something to recommend for me and others to read in 2024, please add it to the comments! Happy Holidays!
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