An update on books I’m reading
So I'm always reading a book. Or two or three. At the same time of course. However, I'm not a very fast reader, nor am I a consistent reader. So even though I'm "always reading a book", it may take me 4 or 5 months to finish one.
Last year I read probably 3 or 4 books. So far this year I've read two and am almost finished with a third:
- The Fellowship of the Ring (first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy)
- Johnathan Livingston Seagull
- Eragon (almost finished with this one)
They've all been enjoyable. While these are the ones I've finished (or nearly), here are some that I'm still in the midst of:
- The Art of Scalability (about scalable system and business architecture)
- Learning Groovy and Grails
- Myths of Innovation
- 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
- Oracle Essentials
Reading again
I'm reading LOTR trilogy again. It's been a few years since I read them. I had forgotten how much detail there is in the history and background of everything. The story and characters really come alive due to all the rich history developed behind it.
Time management
For a long time I've suffered under the illusion that I was doing ok in managing my time and all that I was working on. I assumed that all other programmers, software engineers, system administrators, etc. all had lives similar to mine and that we all barely keep our heads above water and at any moment we could drown.
Well the truth is different from that, and it took a book to help me understand that. Please, please, please- if you are at all in the IT industry and work with code, or systems, or networks, or stuff like that- then please buy and read "Time Management for System Administrators" by Thomas A. Limonecelli (O'Reilley). This book is not magic, don't get me wrong- but if you feel that being burried by tasks and projects is normal and that you have to work more hours a week than a "normal person" becuase your job is just that demanding- then you need this book to help you see differently!
Linux Server Hacks by Rob Flickenger (O’Reilly)
This
book is awesome. I learned so much from it that I have placed it
second on my list of books every software engineer should read. There
are so many great topics covered in such a easy to read and understand
way that you can't help but want to try them out. And after trying a
few out, you start to wonder how on earth did you live without some of
these things.
There are a few books I have read that I really
got a lot out of, and this was one of them. I was familiar with a lot
of the things discussed in here, but not at any great detail (at least
with some of them). I even learned a thing or two with perl (imagine
that!).