January 26, 2012

Book Recommendations

Updated January 26, 2012

This is an unordered list of books I like so much I would like to promote them a bit. There are programming books but also fiction and manga.

Programming Books

The Pragmatic Programmer

#2 in the Stackoverflow question "What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?" and that is no joke. I have yet to read the #1 on the list, Code Complete, but so far The Pragmatic Programmer is the best programming book I have ever read.

It does not teach you to program instead it teaches you how to think as a programmer and small tweaks you can do to become more effective and smarter. It's a little hard to explain but in programming it's the small things that matter and you'll get a ton of improvements from this one. Read and re-read!

Modern Perl

One of my favourite programming books. It's not a book that teaches you how to program which practically every other language specific book does. It simply teaches you the Perl programming language in a modern fashion. It's not a cookbook but it contains a lot of "how to do this" which I found extremely helpful.

I read this book when I wanted to learn Perl. I had read the camel book before but I was a bit impatient to appreciate it I guess. Modern Perl is a very thin book, only 250 pages, but it teaches perl so well. If you want to learn Perl but know how to programming, this is clearly the book for you.

Learn You a Haskell For Great Good

A very fun and easy going book but it's also a good introduction to something as hard as Haskell. How do you get those two together? After you've read this one you'll think that's the way to go.

Effective Java, Effective C++, More Effective C++

I'm actually lumping these together but they are individually excellent books for their language. Some argue that these are the best and I would have to agree.

Misc

Design for Hackers

This is a great introductory book about design. Before reading this I thought programmers were superior to designers but that's a very foolish thought. I used to guess how my web page or my game should look like but now I know that there's something called negative space, receding colors and that you can go infinity deep in font design. Now I'm more aware of the difficulties and the thought and work that goes into making something pretty and usable.

I guess it's the case where the more you know, the more you know that you don't know. Consider for example a child lost in the forest. He's hungry so he picks some berries to eat. When you're a bit older you might know that they could be poisoned, but you don't know which ones. Now you're in a dark and scary place and you don't dare to eat anything at all! I used to be the toddler, happy and unknowing, but now I know how much I don't know. It's a refreshing feeling.

Fiction

Song of Ice and Fire

I have never been a big fan of fantasy, for example I didn't care for the bible of fantasy The Lord of the Rings at all. Bilbo, another of Tolkiens books in the saga, was good but that's it for my positive fantasy experience. But that was before I read this series.

Wonderfully dark and engaging, this is not the classic long vinding good vs evil fantasy (Tolkien I'm looking at you). This series is easy to read and very dark. The villains are the best I've ever met and yet (most) are not completely black and you will even start liking or agreeing with some. Fantastic.

Jeffery Deaver

I fell in love with Jeffery Deaver when I read his book A Maiden's Grave about some escaped prisoners who kidnap a school buss full of deaf girls. The situation escalates to a hostage situation with non-stop action. His book The Cold Moon continues the tradition of smart, twisted and entertaining plot. Here the paralyzed csi Lincoln Rhyme hunts a serial killer by analyzing hints and clues, much like in the tv-show but with more detail and excitement. There are almost 10 books in the series of Lincoln Rhyme and they are all very good.

I also want to highlight The Sleeping Doll which focuses on the human aspect of catching killers. Initially not a very appealing idea but this might be his best book of them all.