Inspired by Gutek’s blog post I decided to look at the past year from the perspective of books that I’ve read.

I’m a huge fan of reading. For me personally, it’s one of the best ways to learn. Video courses have their place, but my first choice is always books. Even audiobooks don’t fit here, I just can’t focus enough on listening to get ‘the meat’.
So books.
I make an exception for ebooks. Mainly because it’s way easier to store 100 ebooks than 100 paper copies, but maybe someday I will have a big library room with a comfy chair just to read? :)

Back to the point.
Here is a list of books that I’ve managed to read in 2018 (tried to find an original title where I could, but not everything is published in English):

• 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People - Weinschenk, Susan M.
• Wychowanie bez nagród i kar. Rodzicielstwo bezwarunkowe - Kohn, Alfie
• Programming Clojure - Halloway, Stuart
• How To Stop Procrastinating: A Simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking your Procrastination Habit - Scott, Steve
• The Growth Hacker’s Ultimate Bible To Social Media: 20 Social Media Hacks for Explosive Growth, Updated & Expanded - Girard, Yann
• Lean from the Trenches - Kniberg, Henrik
• Doktryna jakości. Wydanie II turkusowe. Rzecz o turkusowej samoorganizacji - Blikle, Andrzej Jacek
• The Kubernetes Book: Version 2.2 - January 2018 Poulton, Nigel
• Slicing Pie: Fund Your Company Without Funds - Moyer, Mike
• The Road to learn React - Wieruch, Robin
• The Minimalist Mindset - Dover, Danny
• It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work - Fried, Jason
• Clutterfree with Kids - Becker, Joshua
• The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results - Keller, Gary
• One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way - Maurer, Robert
• Jak wynagradzać pracowników w start-upach i małych firmach - Sedlak, Piotr
• Szef, który ma czas - Ewolucja zarządzania - dziennik budowy turkusowej firmy Jeznach, Andrzej
• Learning Go Programming - Vivien, Vladimir
• Game Engine Black Book, Wolfenstein 3D - Sanglard, Fabien
• Simplify: 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter Their Home and Life - Becker, Joshua
• The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference - Parr, Terence
• Docker Deep Dive - Poulton, Nigel
• Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right - Glowacki, Jamie
• Adventure Riding Techniques: The Essential Guide to All the Skills You Need for Off-road Adventure Riding - Wicks, Robert J.
• Łowcy dusz (Mordimer Madderdin #11) - Piekara, Jacek
• In Odd We Trust (Odd thomas Graphic Novel, #1) - Koontz, Dean
• The Idle Parent: Why Laid-Back Parents Raise Happier and Healthier Kids - Hodgkinson, Tom

As you can see, there are some related to parenting, but most of them are business related as I’m preparing myself for new endeavors in 2019! If I could choose one out of them it would be probably ‘Doktryna jakości’ (It’s only in Polish right now, but AFAIK English translation is in the works). It treats mainly about teal organizations.
Also ‘One Thing’ is worth a note. It’s more about ‘personal development’ and productivity but made me think and I like books that do that.

From more IT related books I would suggest taking a look at ‘Lean from trenches’, especially if you’re working in big, agile environments. It shows few ideas and processes for managing big teams working on the same project. It’s not something imaginary, it’s real life case from Swedish police, what IMHO gives the book additional value.

Looking at all the titles I think there were too few ‘just for fun’ titles, yet ‘Game Engine Black Book, Wolfenstein 3D’ is a real pearl! If you’re in games a bit and/or were raised on first FPP shooters like Wolfenstein, Doom etc. you will love it! It presents some of the technical difficulties that coders had at the time. It’s full of less known facts, it describes algorithms and tips used and even explains some parts of the code. I can’t wait for the second part!.

To wrap this post I encourage you to use Goodreads. It’s a good way to get new titles to read, check reviews etc. Here is my profile. I’m connected there with my friends (you can send me an invite if you like!) and can easily see what good books they are reading and just inspire!