• Reading list for programmers

Here’s a list of some of the books I’ve read since January 2018.

2019

• Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt. Good strategy identifies points of leverage and how to use them, bad strategy is fluff. The book has a good point, but it felt long-winded.
• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. An adventure tale. Captivating even if everything is solved by luck. (reread)
• O by Miki Liukkonen. A hysterical realist novel. Possibly a David Foster Wallace pastiche?

2018

• Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi. Spy fiction meets spiritism.
• The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. A story about a woman who discovers a conspiracy, maybe.
• A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout. Sound advice on coding in the small, such as how to split things into modules. I would recommend it to intermediate-level coders who already have real experience with the topics but who haven’t yet learned everything by themselves.
• Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation by Frederic Laloux and Étienne Appert. Principles for self-managing organizations. Great illustrations.
• The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker. Writing advice.
• Tiranan Sydän by Pajtim Statovci. A story about immigration and gender.
• Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami. See the Murakami bingo card.
• The Wave in Mind by Ursula K. Le Guin. Essays about feminism, books, reading, and writing. Excellent writing.
• Kanban in Action by Marcus Hammarberg and Joakim Sunden. A practical introduction to kanban. A bit verbose but otherwise good.
• Piitles by Mauri Kunnas. A Beatles biography.
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson. You get to choose your own values. Manages to rise above its initial cheesiness.
• The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin. A story about a world that endures catastrophic climate change.
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. A story about a man who commits a murder and then walks around the town.
• The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. Instructions and inspiration for mindfulness meditation.
• The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier. Introduction to engineering management. No fluff. I will refer back to this book.
• Las armas secretas by Julio Cortázar. Ambiguous stories about Paris.
• 300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso. A personal essay or a collection of aphorisms.
• Ongoingness by Sarah Manguso. A personal essay on remembering your life.
• Elements of Clojure by Zachary Tellman. Short treatise on eloquent Clojure. Recommended for intermediate and expert Clojurists.
• The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. About suffering, impermanence, and no-self, in Western and Christian terms. Short and sweet.
• Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel M. Ingram. A map to the higher states attainable by meditation. Might need to be taken with a grain of salt.
• Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto. Stories about the loss of a loved one.
• The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart. Poignant and funny look at the history and the ideology of modern management. Recommended for anyone who reads management literature.

All-time favorite fiction

I rarely re-read books, but there are some books I keep thinking about.

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
• Historias de cronopios y famas by Julio Cortázar.
• The Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

I look at this list and I realize I must have incredibly ordinary taste. Still, they’re good books.

Lists of books read by other people

I’ve found the following lists especially interesting:

• Alvaro Videla’s Some Books For You Consideration
• Venkatesh Rao’s Now Reading page