by Ziauddin Yousafzai (father of Malala)Copyright (c) 2018 Malala, Ziauddin’s daughter, is an awardee of the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating for girls’ education. She paid for this cause by being shot in the face by the Taliban. Her father, living in the midst of a highly patriarchal culture, sought to lead his family in an egalitarian manner while running a school for girls in Pakistan. Malala’s story has been well-told in her best-selling book…
by Loren B. Belker, Jim McCorkmick, and Gary S. TopchikCopyright (c) 2012Audiobook I am not a first-time manager. I am not even a manager. Nonetheless, studying the field of management can give me insight into my work. It can help me work better with the managers around me, and it can help me carry my load as a manage my projects in tandem with the people around me. This book consists of tips and insights…
by Gerald M. WeinbergCopyright (c) 2011 Gerry Weinberg has a PhD in communications and has written around 60 books on various topics, mostly having to do with computer programming. As a glorified computer programmer and an aspiring writer, this Weinberg book on his methodology for writing seems appealing. His basic take runs through writing from the heart. He uses the analogy for nineteen of twenty chapters in this book of craftsperson building a wall with…
by Charlotte BronteFirst published 1847. Jane Eyre was and is a classic of the English language. Originally published part-way through the Victorian era, this book tells a story of a woman who lost her parents to an early death and was raised and educated in an orphan’s asylum. (It is important to note that this was before the rise of the welfare state in Britain and before public education was recognized as a right.) Her…
by Frederick P. BrooksCopyright (c) 1995 What is relevant about a book, in its second edition, that was originally written a generation or two ago about managing computer projects? The author Brooks led the management of the project for IBM decades ago. The answer to this question is simple and is evident in the title. Scaling software projects from smaller-to-larger does not scale linearly. In case you don’t know what this means, scaling non-linearly means…
by Peter Ackroyd Copyright (c) 1998 Thomas More is one of the few beatified English lay-persons in history. He was beheaded for resisting the coming Protestant Reformation. What comes around, goes around, however; More, in the years before King Henry’s divorce of Catherine of Aragon, oversaw the exercise of the death penalty to several Protestant heretics. He stood, as Ackroyd tells it, for the old way of medieval Christendom. He was unwilling to accommodate the…
The Historiography of Contemporary Science, Technology, and Medicine edited by Ronald E. Doel and Thomas Soderqvist Technology in America: A History of Individuals and Ideas edited by Carroll Pursell and Merritt Roe Smith
by Martin FolwerCopyright (c) 1999 I picked up this book at the wrong time. The book was so successful that a second edition is due out on November 30, 2018 (less than two weeks from now). On the other hand, I picked up this book at the right time. At work, my project is in the midst of a refactoring project. I am in the middle of changing PHP code from modular functions to object-orientation.…
by Walter IsaacsonCopyright (c) 2007. This book, based upon recent public releases of Einstein’s private letters, provides a more intimate portrait of Einstein than has been possible before recent years. Einstein’s prowess as an intellectual and a scholar is well-known. His closest relationships – with his sons, both of his wives, and his daughters – has not been well-known. What do we discover from this in-depth look at the man who helped set the course…
The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth & Change by Camille Fournier