Reading list

I believe that to become a “quality developer” it is a good idea to not only have a technological understanding but also a general understanding of how the world works. Remember, the software systems you develop will be used by humans to solve problems i society, act accordingly.

The following list is just my recommendations and can be seen as inspirational. Some books are worth reading to get knowledge about an idea, that is different from agreeing with the author in everything.

  • Technology
    • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs – Abelson, Sussman
    • Release It! – Michael T. Nygard
    • Thinking in Systems – Donella H. Meadows
    • Working with legacy code – Michael Feathers
    • Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture – Martin Fowler
    • Enterprise Integration Patterns – Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf
    • Building evolutionary architectures – Ford, Parsons, Kua
    • Design It! – Michael Keeling
    • Clean Architecture – Robert C. Martin
    • Accelerate – Nicole Forsgren et al.
    • The design of everyday things – Don Norman
    • Your code as a crime scene – Adam Tornhill
  • Testing
    • Failure Is Not an Option – Gene Kranz
    • Apollo – Charles Murray, Catherine Bly Cox
    • Property-Based Testing with PropEr.. – Fred Herbert
  • The state of the world
    • Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
    • Homo Deus – Yuval Noah Harari
    • 21 lessons for the 21st century – Yuval Noah Harari
    • Medieval Europe – Chris Wickham
    • A short history of nearly everything – Bill Bryson
    • Civilization – Niall Ferguson
    • The Rational Optimist – Matt Ridley
    • The Innovators – Walter Isaacson
    • Empire – Niall Ferguson
    • The War of the World – Niall Ferguson
    • The Ascent of Money – Niall Ferguson
    • Gryning över Kalahari : hur människan blev människa – Lasse Berg
    • Skymningssång i Kalahari : Hur människan bytte tillvaro – Lasse Berg
    • Ut ur Kalahari : Drömmen om det goda livet – Lasse Berg
    • Reality Is Not What It Seems : The Journey to Quantum Gravity – Carlo Rovelli
    • Energy and Civilization – Vaclav Smil
  • Thinking
    • Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
    • Behave: The Biology of humans.. – Robert M Sapolsky
    • Fooled by Randomness – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
    • The Black Swan – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
    • Everybody Lies – Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
    • Life 3.0 – Max Tegmark
    • Our Mathematical Universe – Max Tegmark
    • Moonwalking with Einstein – Joshua Foer
    • The pleasure of finding things out – Richard P. Feynman
    • A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
    • The Greates show on Earth – Richard Dawkins
    • Factfulness – Hans Rosling
    • Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid – Douglas R. Hofstadter
  • Autobiographies
    • The Story of My Experiments with Truth – Mahatma Gandhi
    • Benjamin Franklin – Walter Isaacson
    • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin – Benjamin Franklin
    • Hur jag lärde mig förstå världen – Hans Rosling
    • Leonardo da Vinci – Walter Isaacson
    • Albert Einstein – Albrecht Fölsing
    • Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela – Nelson Mandela
    • Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacsons
    • Total Recall – Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • Business and performance
    • Good to Great – Jim Collings
    • The Four – Scott Galoway
    • Shoe Dog – Phil Knight
    • Start with Why – Simon Sinek
    • Leaders eat Last – Simon Sinek
    • Find Your Why – Simon Sinek
    • Talk like TED – Carmine Gallo