This is a collection of books recommended in the comments of John Linquist’s tweet, where he posed the question, “Which book do you think every developer should read?”
Non-Fiction
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- 14 Habits of Highly Productive Developers
- 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
- A Discipline for Software Engineering
- A People’s History of Computing in the United States
- A Philosophy of Software Design
- Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
- Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
- Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams
- AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
- Algorithms
- Antifragile
- Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience
- Atomic Habits
- Badass: Making Users Awesome
- Becoming a Better Programmer: A Handbook for People Who Care About Code
- Becoming a Technical Leader
- Big Magic
- Black Swan
- Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley
- Building Hypermedia Apis with Html5 and Node
- C Programming Language
- Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
- Code Complete
- Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
- Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business
- Composing Software
- Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
- Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
- CSS Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems
- Deep Learning (Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning series)
- Deep Work
- Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems
- Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
- Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
- Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
- Ego Is the Enemy
- Feynman Lectures On Computation
- Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- Foundations of Programming Languages (Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science)
- Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
- Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
- Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
- Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide
- Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
- How to Win Friends and Influence People
- IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation
- Implementing Domain-Driven Design
- Introduction to Algorithms
- Introduction to Algorithms: A Creative Approach
- Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
- Listen Little Man – Reich
- Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager
- Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
- Metaphors We Live By
- ML for the Working Programmer
- Negotiating the Impossible: How to Break Deadlocks and Resolve Ugly Conflicts (Without Money or Muscle)
- Never Eat Alone
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
- No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work
- Operating System Concepts Paperback – January 1, 2012
- Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces
- Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp
- Pattern Discrimination (In Search of Media)
- Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
- Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
- Practical Ethics – Singer
- Questions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life
- Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code
- Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
- Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
- Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable
- Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
- Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
- So Good They Can’t Ignore You
- Software Architecture In Practice
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
- Talking to Humans: Success starts with understanding your customers
- TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols
- Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
- Testing with Humans: How to use experiments to drive faster, more informed decision making
- The 4-Hour Workweek
- The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
- The 12 Week Year
- The Art Of War
- The Artist’s Way
- The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary
- The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
- The Data Model Resource Book, Vol. 1: A Library of Universal Data Models for All Enterprises
- The Design of Everyday Things
- The Elements of Style
- The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’
- The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup
- The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
- The Hacker Ethic: A Radical Approach to the Philosophy of Business
- The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
- The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
- The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
- The Inner Game of Work: Focus, Learning, Pleasure, and Mobility in the Workplace
- The Interface Effect
- The Lean Startup
- The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook
- The Little Book of Stupidity: How We Lie to Ourselves and Don’t Believe Others
- The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
- The Myth of Sisyphus
- The Mythical Man Month
- The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t
- The Obstacle is the Way
- The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
- The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey To Mastery
- The Psychology of Computer Programming
- The Richest Man In Babylon
- The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream
- The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake
- The Soul of A New Machine
- The Stars My Destination
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
- The Tyranny of Metrics
- The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data
- Thinking in Systems: A Primer Paperback
- Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson
- Who Moved My Cheese?: An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
- Why Customers Really Buy: Uncovering the Emotional Triggers That Drive Sales
- Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind
- Working Effectively with Legacy Code
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
- Zero to One
Fiction
- 1984
- Consider Phlebas
- Dune
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Jurassic Park
- Naked Lunch
- Stand on Zanzibar
- The Alchemist
- The Fault in Our Stars
- The Glass Bead Game
- The Phantom Tollbooth
- The Speed of Dark
- The Trial
Thanks for reading, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Find me on twitter.
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