After accidentally reading 42 books in 2012, I had quietly set myself the goal of reaching 52 books in 2013. With a last minute book off of Lean Pub I pulled it off with 1 minute 12 seconds to spare.
The List
Highlights
There are a few stand out books from this list. First and foremost, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is a great book. I am fascinated by how the human mind works and this was my grand introduction to psychology. He discusses how our mind works as two different systems in an engaging way that allows for understanding to come as you read through. I cannot recommend this book enough.
Having read the Ender’s Game quartet last year, I picked up the Bean Quartet by Orson Scott Card this year. The first book is the exact same story as Ender’s Game, but through Bean’s eyes. The following three books are a much faster paced adventure through an earth in a not-to-distant future.
Love Wins by Rob Bell is a book that received much attention when it came out—and not positive attention.. I must say that as a Christian it greatly challenged my view of God and His love. If nothing else, it shows God’s love in such a greater light than what I had ever imagined.
I can’t remember a single technical book I’ve read before this year that I would strongly recommend. These year there were four.
David Herman and Reg Braithwaite have written the two best books on JavaScript. Effective JavaScript and JavaScript Allongé. If you spend any time at all in JavaScript at a professional level you should read these books.
Effective JavaScript is a very thorough, dispassionate explanation of the JavaScript language. It does not dwell on browser idiosyncracies, yet equips you to understand and handle them should you encounter them.
JavaScript Allongé is a work of art. Read the reviews on https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge. Every single one of them: true.
Ilya Grigorik delves into HTTP, TCP, UDP, WebRTC, WebSockets, and more in his High-Performance Browser Networking. Being a front end engineer for the past 3 years you may expect one to have a fairly solid grasp on these protocols and their history. I knew nothing about networking before this book.
The Senior Software Engineer by David Bryant Copeland took many of my thoughts about this craft and said them eloquently. It helped solidify a few ideas and expand others. Every software engineer should read this, junior or not.
2014?
No. No book reading goal. I am still reading, just for pleasure at whatever pace it happens to be. Currently, I’m embarking on a adventure through the seven kingdoms in Game of Thrones.
I have other goals to focus on now that I have some time back. I have a handful of public goals on github