Selected reading
The Pragmatic Programmer
Software engineering
The Pragmatic Programmer
The everyday craft of software development: taking responsibility, working with change, and keeping code maintainable.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
Software engineering
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
The tradeoffs behind reliable data systems, from storage and data models to replication and distributed processing.
A Philosophy of Software Design
Software engineering
A Philosophy of Software Design
Managing complexity through clear interfaces, useful abstractions, and code that is easier to understand and change.
Thinking in Systems
Systems & operations
Thinking in Systems
Feedback loops, delays, and the structures that produce recurring behavior. A vocabulary for examining the system around a problem.
Toyota Production System
Systems & operations
Toyota Production System
Understanding how work flows, identifying waste, and improving the production process through observation and experimentation.
Working Backwards
Systems & operations
Working Backwards
Amazon’s approach to building and running products, including written narratives, customer-focused planning, and business reviews.
The Restaurant Manager’s Handbook
Systems & operations
The Restaurant Manager’s Handbook
A practical reference for restaurant operations, covering the people, processes, and daily details involved in running a restaurant.
The Design of Everyday Things
Design & communication
The Design of Everyday Things
How design helps people understand what they can do, see what happened, and recover from mistakes. Relevant to interfaces and everyday tools.
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Design & communication
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Presenting data clearly and honestly, with attention to comparisons, context, and the information a reader needs to understand a chart.
The E-Myth Revisited
Systems & operations
The E-Myth Revisited
Building a business around repeatable processes, clear roles, and systems that make day-to-day work less dependent on the owner.
API Design Patterns
Software engineering
API Design Patterns
Patterns for designing consistent, usable APIs, including resource models, common operations, and the choices that help an interface evolve.
Playing to Win
Business strategy
Playing to Win
Strategy as a connected set of choices: where to compete, how to win, and which capabilities and management systems support those decisions.
The Culture Map
Culture & communication
The Culture Map
How cultural differences shape communication, feedback, trust, and decision-making when people work together.
The Coaching Habit
Leadership
The Coaching Habit
Using better questions and more deliberate listening to help people think through problems and develop their own answers.
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”
Science & memoir
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”
Stories of curiosity, experimentation, and the pleasure of figuring things out, drawn from the life of physicist Richard Feynman.
Meditations
Philosophy
Meditations
Personal reflections on judgment, responsibility, impermanence, and how to act when circumstances are outside your control.
The Machine Stops
Fiction
The Machine Stops
A short story about a society dependent on an all-encompassing machine, exploring isolation, mediated experience, and technological dependence.
When Breath Becomes Air
Memoir
When Breath Becomes Air
A neurosurgeon’s account of becoming a patient, and his search for meaning in work, relationships, and a life with limited time.