"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them." - Lemony Snicket

Influential Books

I've read a lot of books, but these eight have had the most influence over shaping my personality, my views, and how I work.

Books I've Read

Below is a list of every book I've read since I became a programmer in January 2013. I also keep track of this list on Goodreads.

2021

  1. The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
  3. AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate All-In-One Exam Guide, 2nd Edition by Joyjeet Banerjee
  4. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
  5. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell
  6. Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry by Jason Schreier
  7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
  8. Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig
  9. Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan
  10. Harry Poter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
  11. Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris
  12. Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
  13. Architectural Patterns with Python by Harry Percival
  14. Harry Poter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
  15. Harry Poter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

2020

  1. Harry Poter and the Sorceror's Stone by J.K. Rowling
  2. The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim
  3. To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink
  4. Fluent Python by Luciano Ramalho
  5. Writing Without Bullshit by Joshua Bernoff
  6. White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
  7. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
  8. The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower #2) by Stephen King
  9. Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott

2019

  1. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
  2. Watchmen by Alan Moore
  3. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday
  4. Grokking Algorithms by Aditya Y. Bhargava
  5. Recursion by Black Crouch
  6. Measure What Matters by John Doerr
  7. The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
  8. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
  9. Make Today Count: The Secret of Your Success Is Determined by Your Daily Agenda by John C. Maxwell
  10. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
  11. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
  12. The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier
  13. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials #2) by Philip Pullman
  14. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
  15. Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda
  16. The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1) by Stephen King
  17. How To Not Always Be Working by Marlee Grace
  18. Comedy Sex God by Pete Holmes
  19. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5) by Rick Riordan
  20. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
  21. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #4) by Rick Riordan
  22. The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3) by Rick Riordan
  23. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
  24. The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2) by Rick Riordan
  25. High Output Management by Andy Grove
  26. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials #1) by Philip Pullman
  27. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1) by Rick Riordan
  28. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier

2018

  1. Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender
  2. Based on a True Story by Norm Macdonald
  3. It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
  4. Clean Architecture by Robert C. Martin
  5. The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore
  6. Annihilation by James VanderMeer
  7. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
  8. Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
  9. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
  10. World Gone By by Dennis Lehane

2017

  1. You Don't Know JS: Types & Grammar by Kyle Simpson
  2. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
  3. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems by Sam Newman
  4. Two Scoops of Django 1.11: Best Practices for the Django Web Framework by Daniel and Audrey Roy Greenfeld
  5. How Successful People Grow: 15 Ways to Get Ahead in Life by John C. Maxwell
  6. High Performance Django by Peter Baumgartner
  7. You Don't Know JS: this & Object Prototypes by Kyle Simpson
  8. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco
  9. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler
  10. You Don't Know JS: Scope and Closures by Kyle Simpson
  11. You Don't Know JS: Up & Going by Kyle Simpson

2016

  1. Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg
  2. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
  3. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
  4. Soft Skills by John Sonmez
  5. Live by Night by Dennis Lehane
  6. How Successful People Lead by John C. Maxwell
  7. Speaking JavaScript by Axel Rauschmayer
  8. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
  9. Essential SQLAlchemy by Jason Myers and Rick Copeland
  10. Flask Web Development by Miguel Grinberg
  11. The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
  12. Getting Ready for Marriage by Jim Burns and Doug Fields
  13. Getting Things Done by David Allen
  14. JavaScript and jQuery by Jon Duckett
  15. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
  16. Get a Financial Life by Beth Kobliner

2015

  1. 101 Secrets for Your Twenties by Paul Angone
  2. Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps by Kelly Williams Brown
  3. Holes by Louis Sachar
  4. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
  5. Fluent Python by Luciano Ramalho
  6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
  7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
  8. Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix by J.K. Rowling
  9. Remote by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried
  10. Usable Usability by Eric Reiss
  11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
  12. Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School?: 99 Personal Money Management Principles to Live By by Cary Siegel
  13. Effective Python: 59 Specific Ways to Write Better Python by Brett Slatkin
  14. The Martian by Andy Weir
  15. Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices for Django 1.8 by Daniel Roy Greenfeld and Audrey Roy Greenfeld
  16. 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know by Kevlin Henney
  17. Scrum by Jeff Sutherland
  18. Test-Driven Development with Python by Harry Percival
  19. Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling
  20. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
  21. Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

2014

  1. Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices for Django 1.6 by Daniel Greenfeld and Audrey Roy
  2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
  3. Illustrated C# 2012 by Daniel Solis
  4. Harry Poter and the Sorceror's Stone by J.K. Rowling
  5. The Quick Python Book by Naomi R. Ceder
  6. Accounting Made Simple by Mike Piper
  7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  8. Head First Python by Paul Barry
  9. Bioshock: Rapture by John Shirley
  10. Grails in Action, Second Edition by Glen Smith and Peter Ledbrook
  11. The Non-Designer's Design Book, Third Edition by Robin Williams
  12. Creative, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco and Joy Deangdeelert Cho
  13. JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford
  14. Brain Rules by John Medina
  15. How Successful People Think by John C. Maxwell
  16. A Software Engineer Learns HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery by Dane Cameron
  17. Pragmatic Unit Testing by Andy Hunt
  18. Groovy in Action, Second Edition by Dierk König, et al.
  19. Introducing Regular Expressions by Michael James Fitzgerald
  20. Sam's Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours by Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew, and Arie D. Jones
  21. Groovy 2 Cookbook by Andrey Adamovich and Luciano Fiandesio
  22. Sam's Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes by Ben Forta
  23. The Passionate Programmer by Chad Fowler
  24. Head First Design Patterns by Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, Kathy Sierra and Elisabeth Robson
  25. Don't Make Me Think, Revisited by Steve Krug
  26. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  27. The Design of Everyday Things, Revisited by Don Norman
  28. The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird
  29. Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell

2013

  1. Spring Security 3.1 by Robert Winch and Peter Mularien
  2. Pro Spring Security by Carlo Scarioni
  3. Learning SQL by Alan Beaulieu
  4. Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski
  5. Making Java Groovy by Ken Kousen
  6. Head First Mobile Web by Jason Grigsby
  7. Code Complete, Second Edition by Steve McConnell
  8. HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites by Jon Duckett
  9. Don't Make Me Think, Second Edition by Steve Krug
  10. The Clean Coder by Robert C. Martin
  11. Programming Groovy 2 by Venkat Subramaniam
  12. Programming Grails by Burt Beckwith
  13. Beginning Groovy, Grails, and Griffon by Vishal Layka, Christopher M Judd, Joseph Faisal Nusairat and Jim Shingler
  14. Programming Groovy by Venkat Subramaniam
  15. Clean Code by Robert C. Martin
  16. Pro Git by Scott Chacon
  17. The Definitive Guide to Grails 2 by Jeff Scott Brown and Graeme Rocher
  18. Getting Started with Grails, Second Edition by Scott Davis and Jason Rudolph
  19. Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics by Jennifer Niederst Robbins