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The "Mistborn" trilogy by Brandon Sanderson is probably my favorite fiction. Incredible worldbuilding with an epic, unpredictable plot. Yet everything makes logical sense and the "magic" systems are well defined and explained. The first book has been described as "Ocean's Eleven meets Lord of the Rings". The first book is called "The Final Empire", or sometimes just "Mistborn".
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams of course. From the first to the sixth and seventh book of the four parted trilogy of five. It's about life the universe and everything. You'll figure it all out while reading. I would suggest these books to everyone.
Then there is the trilogy consisting of Epic, Saga, and Edda, written by Conor Kostick. It's pretty much about people who crash landed on a foreign planet who've built a society forbidding violence in any way. They achieve this by handling any conflicts within Epic, a video game.
Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a sci-fi dystopian novel about automation and the existential angst associated with it, from the perspective of engineers. I like this book the most, because this is the novel that I wanted to write...a story about how people deal with increasing amounts of automation in their day-to-day life.
Galápagos, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a novel about humanity slowly recovering from a dystopian 1980s. While it is technically a happier story, the plot has humanity reach near-extinction levels and slowly mutate into an unrecognizable form.
Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. both deals with total warfare. Slaughterhouse-Five focuses on predestination issues while Cat's Cradle satirizes the arms race associated with the Cold War.
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad is a novel about imperialism, colonialism, and civilization (of the lack thereof), set in the Congo Free State.
There's probably other non-programming books out there that are useful, but I haven't read them yet. For example, somebody recommended The Sirens of Titan (by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.) as a better novel than Player Piano, but I haven't read The Sirens of Titan, so I can't say whether I like it or not.
"Audition" by Michael Shurtleff, "The famed broadway and hollywood casting director reveals everything an actor needs to know to get the part".
So right now you must be asking yourself "Why should I read a book about how to succeed in an audition for a play when I'm a programmer?"
This is a fanstastic book about theater and so about human relationships. At first level you'll be surprised how an audition is close to an interview and how Shurtleff advices can be useful for us all. Next you'll see relations, intentions and stories in a all new way.
Since I read this book, I can't stop recommending it...
Cool! Never would have thought to read Audition. I wish it was available on Audible.
At least it's available on Kindle. On Audible it would be such a hard work to do but for sure it can be awesome :)
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."
Last 2 book I've read:
The Shockwave Rider - An amazing essay-with-a-plot on our information-rich society, written in 1975. Starts off a bit hard-to-read (sci-fi with specific date references), but once you get over it the book is unbelievably insightful. Definitely worth a read. Oh, and it is also great plot-wise.
Neuromancer - First (AFAIK) cyber-punk novel. Very well written. A pleasure to read. On that note, it is quite unbelievable that Disney's TRON came out before this book.
Not of my recently read:
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering - A fantastic book on, well, practical technical (research) work. Hamming did an amazing job writing this one, and I've often taken and applied advice from this book. You can also go for the short version - You and Your Research.
"Sleights of Mind". As an amateur magician with a fascination in psychology and perception, this book hit all my high notes. The authors talk about various phenomena of perception such as attention, depth perception, etc in the context of some classic magical effects, including, yes, telling the secrets of those effects. All this with a through narrative of the authors preparing to audition for membership in The Magic Castle.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, the story of seven generations of the Buendía Family in the town of Macondo. The founding patriarch of Macondo, José Arcadio Buendía, and Úrsula Iguarán, his wife (and first cousin), leave Riohacha, Colombia, to find a better life and a new home. One night of their emigration journey, while camping on a riverbank, José Arcadio Buendía dreams of "Macondo", a city of mirrors that reflected the world in and about it. Upon awakening, he decides to establish Macondo at the river side; after days of wandering the jungle, José Arcadio Buendía's founding of Macondo is utopic.[3]
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).
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
The Rosie Project
The Defining Decade - Why your twenty somethings matter
Sydney Sheldon novels (Nothing lasts forever, Memories of Midnight)
John Grisham novels (The Client, Pelican Brief, The Racketeer, The Testament are ones I really enjoyed)
The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
Based simply on the number of times I've re-read them, I'd have to go with the original 5-book "Amber" series by Roger Zelazny, starting with "Nine Princes in Amber" and ending with "The Courts of Chaos." If I've read them twice (and I have), then I've read them at least 30 times -- seriously!
Honorable mention goes to "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I don't think I've quite made it to double-digits yet in number of times read.
'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.