Summer Reading

Posted by Miles Evans

Six weeks of nearly non stop travel have not allowed much blog posting as of late. To be honest I have also been doing some vacationing and trying to enjoy life offline a bit more. For me that includes a lot of reading. Here are a few of my favorites - hover the links for prices.

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work - This is a great read. Through case studies and real world examples the authors (both doctors) will help you detect ‘psychopathic’ behavior. I found this book incredibly useful for evaluating talent.

Freakanomics - Steven Levitt is a brilliant economist, and in Freakanomics the reader is shown a myriad of ways number crunching and analysis can be applied to the real world to find the hidden side of pretty much anything.

The Long Tail - This is Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson’s much hyped book about long tail theory. I doubt this one needs much introduction as long tail analysis is all the rage right now. This book is really a wake up call for anyone doing nearly any type of online business today. Highly recommended.

The Art of Intrusion - Famous hacker Kevin Mitnick explores the dark side of the internet and outlines security plans and auditing methods. This should be required reading for any systems manager. Also see The Art of Deception, Kevin's first offering, which covers much of the same with an emphasis on social engineering.

The 48 Laws of Power - Somehow Robert Greene slipped off my radar a couple of years back so I just got around to reading these recently. There seems to be a bit of a cult following around Robert Greene. The author uses actual examples from history to hammer home his laws of power and it’s a pretty convincing ride. This is the same guy who wrote The Art of Seduction and recently The 33 Strategies of War, both of which were equally enjoyable.

Guanxi (The Art of Relationships: Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead - This is a bit of a propaganda piece but it is actually really insightful for anyone doing business in Asia and specifically China. I found myself applying some of the techniques used in the book to recruit talent in Thailand. A must read for any Asian expats.

Ruby on Rails: Up and Running - This is likely the best ROR book for beginning development with the powerful development framework that is the talk of the town. O’reilly Press and just released August 1, 2006.

Pragmatic Ajax: A Web 2.0 Primer - From Javascript and DHTML to the legendary XmlHttpRequest call, this one has it covered. The book really aims to establish a strong background on what Ajax is, how it works, and where it is going. This was by far the best book on Ajax I have come across – really well done.

And don’t forget everyone’s favorite on the john mags: Wired, 2600, and Linux Journal (these guys all distribute internationally, even here in Bangkok).

Posted Aug 25, 2006 at 03:04 AM | Permalink | Trackback URL | Del.icio.us | DIGG!