At the end of 2016 I posted “Books I Read in 2016”. Figured I’d continue that trend, even if I’m a little late.

  1. On Emotional Intelligence
  2. Lean Startup
  3. Meetings Suck
  4. Sprint
  5. Designing Data-Intensive Applications

Only five in 2017, as opposed to ten in 2016. Not so great, but that last book is pretty long and actually spilled over a little bit into 2018. Realistically, I probably won’t keep up ten books a year; even five is a stretch. As I’ve said in the previous post, I really don’t like reading books, but because I recognize its value, I make myself do it. And, with the exception of “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”, I’ve borrowed all of these books from my boss, so it doesn’t cost me anything but my time!

What’s Worth Reading?

Once again, this is aimed at developers.

Read On Emotional Intelligence if you feel like you don’t know yourself very well, if you’re anti-social, and/or generally don’t like people. It will help you understand yourself better and, as an extension, other people as well. For me personally, I don’t feel like I needed to read this book because I already spend considerable effort contemplating its topics. But, I think many developers would benefit from reading it (I’m slightly more social than most developers I’ve met).

Read Lean Startup if you want a step-by-step guide on how to launch a product in your new startup. For me, this was redundant with Lean Analytics, which I read in 2016. Lean Analytics was better but much harder to read.

Read Meetings Suck, not to make yourself better at meetings, but to have an example to show everyone else in your company. Point to the book as an example of how to run meetings. Everyone knows how to make meetings more efficient - we just don’t do it because we choose to get distracted. Use this book as a reminder of how to stay on track.

Read Sprint if you’re interested in product development rather than just code (hint: you should be, if you want to be an effective developer). I think this book is aimed primarily at a different department, but it’s good for developers to read to understand their role in the product (this book de-emphasizes writing code). Definitely read it if you ever intend to start your own company.

Read Designing Data-Intensive Applications if you work with a database frequently and have at least a few years of experience under you (so, probably most developers). It’s not for entry-level developers. I think it was just right for my experience level (3 years post-college experience, 7 years programming total). A lot of the book confirmed what I thought I knew, and also gave me a lot to think about for the future of interacting with databases. It helped me understand what it would mean to actually work on a database - the kinds of things you have to consider in order to create a good abstraction for application developers.

What’s Next?

In 2018 so far, I’ve read The Five Levels of Leadership. On my list, I also have The Membership Economy and The Four. I seem to acquire books faster than I can read them. I wanted to list these here in order to hold myself accountable for reading them in 2018. 2019 will be here before we know it.