Friday 5 December 2008

Dear Santa - Books and Time to read them please

Read the latest blog post from Randy Rice this morning about leadership by the book.
Struck a huge resounding chord with me as I am such a big reader. His blog also linked to an article which suggested holding book reviews where people at a company would get together to read a book and work out how the ideas and principles could be applied to their organisation. Seems a great idea and one I am going to try and get up and running
( if I have time from helping out with the Software Testing Club book )

Then read the latest Rands in Repose blog which was also about books and his belief that there can never be enough books - and I really liked the end of his post where he is putting the proceeds from any T-shirt sales to a nonprofit organization that helps give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.


That doesn't seem to be my problem ( not enough books ), the problem I have is never enough time to read them all
Currently on pre-order I have
How We Test Software at Microsoft (PRO-best Practices)
and Lisa Crispin's new book
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

My Amazon wish list is now at 5 pages and has books ranging from Corps Business: The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines ( supposed to be a great book on Agile Development ) to Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior ( I've definitely worked with both types ) and Dealing with People You Can't Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst has to be a useful book.

I still like to keep my programming skills going so have my eyes on Scripted GUI Testing with Ruby
One book I read a while ago and really liked was The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement which introduced me to the Theory of Constraints so a book about Thinking for a Change: Putting the TOC Thinking Processes to Use sounds a good read

I really need the Xmas holidays to be a month long...

What's on your Xmas reading and wish list ?

1 comment:

Michele Smith said...

Hi Phil,

I hope to get at least one Richard Feynman book to read for Christmas. I have not yet read any of his works and this new year may be the perfect year to do so. Perhaps a copy of "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", or "What Do You Care What Other People Think?".

On my Classic Literature list: I am currently reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, I am hoping to read either "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" by Benjamin Franklin or "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky next.