Working from home for six months has made it really easy to get a lot of reading done. This is the final list of books that I’ve finished during the period.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters by Richard Rumelt
We went through this book as part of the reading group for Tech Leads at work. The book looks at what a strategy is and contrasts it to the usual set of motivational ideas that we are often told is a strategy. The book emphasises a logical plan based on an analysis of the problem together with reasoning as to why a particular item was targeted. A mix of common sense and good tricks to get a good plan together.
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson
This again was going to be the object of a reading group; however, the switch to working from home meant that this never happened, but I read my way through the book anyway. I must admit that I found the book hard going.
How Linux works by Brian Ward
I’m going to be moving back to using Linux day to day, and wanted a refresher on the lower level details of Linux. This book is brilliant for that purpose. As the blurb says, it covers all of the basics, though it does this in lots of interesting detail.
Webpack 5 Up and Running: A quick and practical introduction to the JavaScript application bundler by Tom Owens
I wanted to get up to speed by the new version of webpack. To be honest this book just feels like cut and pasted parts of the existing documentation, and it really feels like the book could do with some good proof reading to correct the typos and misspellings.
The Daemon, the Gnu, and the Penguin by Peter H Salus
A potted history of Unix and Linux. A quick read by interesting from a historical point of view.
Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum by Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin has written a loads of books over the years about the search for a unified theory of physics. This is another one that talks about his more recent ideas around quantum mechanics and how we can give it a realist interpretation. I must admit that I have enjoyed all of his books.
Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development by Jim Blandy
There are several people at work who are massive fans of Rust, and this book does a really good job both of explaining the language and discussing the benefits of using Rust to get runtime safety. The book is really good and I will certainly be using the language in the future.