[DNF] means did not finish. Usually a bad sign. [R] means a re-read.
My Goodreads.
In Progress
- Adler, Mortimer J. How to Read a Book.
- Banno, Eri. Genki I. The OG Japanese textbook.
- Donovan, Alan; Kernighan, Brian. The Go Programming Language. Dated, but still “the Bible”.
- Edwards, Alex. Let’s Go.
- Golemna, Daniel. HBR’s 10 Must Reads for New Managers.
- Homer. The Illiad.
- Stephenson, Neil. Seveneves.
- Taleb, Nassim. Antifragile.
- Tarrant, John. Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans to Bring You Joy.
- Zhou, Julie. The Making of a Manager.
The Stand Outs
- Kahn, David. The Codebreakers. If, at ~1,000 pages, this seems overwhelming, read Singh’s The Code Book instead. But if you want the deets, this is the one and only.
- Marquet, David. Turn the Ship Around!. I’m not usually a fan of “leadership” books. Marquet is an exception.
- Taleb, Nassim. The Black Swan. Taleb is always good. Not a fan of his occasionally, and unnecessarily, acerbic attitude, but this belongs in the “re-read” pile. In fact, I would go futher and put all Taleb’s books in the “make a study of” pile. I’m likely fanboi-ing a bit, but are these some of the most important books I have ever read?
Worth a Read
- Buchmann, Johannes A., et al. Introduction to Public Key Infrastructures.
- Cheshire, Jim. Microsoft Azure Fundamentals.
- Diogenes, Yuri, et al. Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals.
- Sapkowski, Andrezej. Crossroads of Ravens. It felt a bit weak in the beginning, but I ended up really enjoying this. Makes me want to play Witcher 3 again.
- Seguin, Karl. The Little Go Book. A bit dated, but still worthwhile. And you can’t beat the price.
YMMV
- Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. I find it more instructive to read about Aurelius, rather than reading Aurelius. It’s what you would expect, reading someone’s diary.
- Farrell, Warren. Role Mate to Soul Mate. These books are all the same. If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. Practice grace, practice compassion. Pause before you respond. That’s all you need to know.
- Galloway, Scott. Notes on Being a Man. Possibly useful life advice for men in their late teens and early 20s. There may be a few nuggets in here for older men too, but not enough to warrant spending your hard-earned clams on.
- Tarrant, John. The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life. Tarrant uses language that is very offputting for me. For others it will no doubt be an excellent read.
[DNF]Watkins, Michael D. The First 90 Days. The level of effort required to learn and implement the book’s 10-step plan (the mere presence of an “X-step plan” should serve as a warning) is not worth whatever benefit you might get from learning and implementing the plan.