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Latest comments (40)
1) The Bible
2) How to make friends and influence people
3) Art of war
4) Judaism and Christianity: the differences.
The Alchemist, without question. So inspiring on many levels, that I keep returning to it, as the best book I've ever read!
How to Make Sense of Any Mess by Abby Covert.
It's Information Architecture (IA) for everybody. To help people structure the information to make it understandable, Abby Covert wrote this invaluable piece of IA fundamentals. It's the "Don't make me think" (Steve Kruger's book on usability) for IA.
If you want to make a better product or service, this book it'll be a huge resource of knowledge.
You can read it online: How to Make Sense of Any Mess
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
'Managing humans' by Michael Lopp (rands) is currently on my kindle - so far it's a fantastic read and I'd recommend it to anyone who is keen on people leadership in the tech industry.
I always recommend 'the clean coder' and 'clean code' by Robert C. Martin (though he's often referred to as just 'Uncle Bob') to any programmer that's about to start their first job. I'd add that these books are an equally valuable read for veteran programmers. At my former workplace we kept copies that people could borrow when they joined our team.
In addition, if you're new to the industry and are starting your first job or maybe just starting your first project you'd almost certainly benefit from reading a project management fundamentals book, such as 'Fundamentals of Project Management : Tools and Techniques' by Rory Burke.
Having some knowledge of how projects work and the language that's used going into your role is much easier than figuring things out afterwards.
If you'd prefer to read a more complete book on project management then PMBOK is the big ugly book for you!
Too many to mention, here are a few, The "No Asshole Rule" by Robert Sutton, the Freakonomics series of books by Stephen Levitt, Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Foundation and Robot series by Asimov, Anything by J.K. Rowlings, Anything Tolkien, The Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel, King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild which should be followed by The Story of Uranium by Tom Zollner since they historically complement one another, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond and The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver.
Halldor Laxness. Independent People. Bjartur Jónsson worked as a farmhand for 16 years to save the money to buy his own farm in the Icelandic wilderness of the early 20th C Iceland. What's it really like to be truly a "self-made" man, totally independent? (Hint: it's not like on TV.)
Ivan Doig. This House of Sky. Memoir of growing up in early to mid-20th Century Montana. In the days before highways and cheap cars, before social security and readily available medical care, life was precarious. His mother died when he was still very young, of an illness that would have been easily treated by a doctor. Beautifully written, moving account of life when you worked until you dropped (Doig's grandmother worked until she died, at age 80.)
Roland Huntford. Shackleton. Biography of the greatest polar explorer, renowned as a leader. Famously, he never lost a man on an expedition. To this day, he is held up as an exemplar in leadership training courses.
Anthony Trollope. He Knew He Was Right. A subtle account of a husband driven mad by sexual jealousy. Out of trivial disagreements of a newly married couple, we see how seemingly innocuous choices by both lead to a tragic denouement.
Makers. Pirate Cinema. Little Brother. Homeland. All by Cory Doctorow.
Cryptonomicon. Age of Diamond. Snow Crash. Seveneves - all by Neal Stephenson.
I also read "non-geeky stuff", especially poetry, but in my mother's tongue, Spanish. My favourite poets: Jaime Sabines (from Mexico) and Mario Benedetti (from Uruguay).
Oh, I really wanted to read those! However, to find any translation of those to Portuguese (let alone a decent one) was borderline impossible in 90s and aughties. Now, by mentioning them, you've inspired me to try them again in English, thanks :)
Two books who really help me until today are How to talk to children so they listen and how to listen so they talk and Non-violent Communication. The first one is valid even for dealing with grown-up people. The second one is really helping me to be less damaging to others and myself.
Another non-fiction book is Vital Dust, about the history of life. I'm afraid it may be a bit outdated today but it gives a great panoramic view. The first volume of History of Private Life is amazing (but I cannot bear the other ones).
In fiction, two books I really like are One Hundred Years of Solitude and Creation (by Gore Vidal). The first one is a really pleasurable book. I used to arrive late at home after working and studying in college, and by 11 PM I would read "one or two pages." In general I went to bed by 4 AM having to wake up at 6 AM... The second one was really instructive and entertaining.
I like poetry, and my favorite long poem is Paradise Lost. There is an obscure Brazilian one, Anchieta or Gospel in the Junge, that I really like. I kinda liked the Divine Comedy and the Lusiads, but they are harder to read. (I would prefer Fernando Pessoa's Message over Lusiads any time!) Aeneid was good, too, but I barely read the first forty verses. (Curiously, I never liked Iliad and Odyssey...)
But the book I really, really love is _Grande Sertão: Veredas (or The Devil to Pay in the Backlands in English.) It is very idiosyncratic and relies heavily in rural Brazilian Portuguese dialects, so I cannot really recommend the translation. (They say it is a great translation, but I feel it would be like translating "Ulysses" from James Joyce. It sounds like impossible :) ). I don't think it is a book most people would like, so that's why I've put it at last, but it is undoubtedly my favorite. It is the only voluminous book I've read twice, and will read for the third time.
(The truth however is that I've read most of those books in my teen years and early twenties; those days I only read about tech most of the time.)
Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.
Neuromancer by William Gibson.
1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell.
the discworld novels, the Dragonlance series (first 6 books) and Harry Potter:3 cuz it's my childhood :)
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the fictional Discworld, a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle,
the Dragonlance is the classic Dungeons and Dragons Plot , a group of people rescue the world ;) what i like the most about this books is that the fighting is "realistic" not like Lord of the Rings if the protagonist has to fight more than 2 enemies is already quite hard.
for all the fantasy fans i can recommend both of this book series.
OHHHH and what i forgot all the H. P. Lovecraft books but just as Audio-books while i'm at work or in the car
vote Cthulhu why chose the lesser evil :P
"that is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange æons, even death may die."
Can't believe none has mentioned Dune yet. All the books in this series written by Frank are my favorite reads. They are deep, philosophical and epic.
The Catcher in The Rye by J. D. Salinger
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Yes, I also really like early Salinger's books. Especially Catcher in the Rye.
By the way, did you know that Above the Catcher in the Rye is considered a dangerous book? that in many countries it is prohibited, or with a mark of eighteen plus. I read about this in the essay samploon.com/free-essays/catcher-i... when I wrote the article for the magazine. And I found out that it all started when an article appeared in the Times about the fact that many serial killers called this book their favorite.
Love reading Tom Clancy and Dan Brown. About the only non-fiction I read.