Happy New Year everyone! I was able to complete reading a few books in the last days so this first post will be a quick review of all twelve books I've read in 2013.
Technical Blogging
I've started the year with Technical Blogging: Turn Your Expertise into a Remarkable Online Presence by Antonio Cangiano. This is the book which prompted me to start this blog. It is targeted primarily at technical blogging but could be useful to non-tech bloggers as well. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is writing for the web.
The 4-Hour Workweek
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss. This book I found at a local start-up event and is one of my all time favorites. The basic idea is to ditch the traditional working space and work less utilizing more automation. This is something I've been doing to an extent during the last 5+ years and I am still changing my life and working habits to reach the moment where I work only a few hours a week.
A must read for any entrepreneur, freelancer or work from home folks.
The E-Myth Revisited
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber is the second book I've found at the same start-up event mentioned previously. I found this one particularly hard to read. What I took from it was that you should think about your business as a franchise and document processes so that others can do it for you in the same way you would do it yourself.
Culture and Wine
Next two books are in Bulgarian and can be found at my Goodreads list. They are about culture and religion and wine tasting 101.
Accelerando
Accelerando (Singularity) by Charles Stross is also one of my favorites. I've heard about it at a local CloudFoundry conference a few years back and finally had the time to read it. This is a fiction book where events start in the near future and drive forward to dismantling the planets in the Solar system, uploading lobsters minds on the Internet, space travel, aliens and family relationships. I will definitely recommend it, the book is a very relaxing read.
DevOps
What Is DevOps? by Mike Loukides and Building a DevOps Culture by Mandi Walls are two short free books for Kindle. They just touch base on the topic of DevOps and what it takes to create a DevOps organization. Definitely worth reading even if you're not deeply interested in this topic.
DevOps for Developers by Michael Huttermann is a practical books about DevOps. It talks about processes and tools and lists lots of examples. The tools part is Ruby centric though. I found it a bit hard to read at times and it took me a while to complete it. I'm not sure if the book is really helpful if one decides to change an exiting organization to a DevOps like structure but it is definitely a starting point.
The days of waterfall software development are gone and knowingly or not most of us work in a DevOps like environment these days. I think it's worth at least skimming through this book and taking some essentials from it.
UX For Lean Startups
UX for Lean Startups by Laura Klein is a very good book about designing user experience and validation which I've reviewed previously. I strongly recommend this book to everyone who is building a product of some sort.
Bulgarian Comics
At the end of the year I've managed to read two comics books, both in Bulgarian. The first one is a brief history of the comics arts in the country in the past 150 years with lots of references to good old stories which I've read when I was a kid.
The second one is a special edition (ebook only, print edition is out of stock) of the popular Daga (Rainbow) magazine which ceased to exist 20 years ago. There are some new episodes of the old stories drawn by the original artists.
Both books seem to be a turning point in Bulgarian comics art and market. Hopefully we'll see more cool stuff in the future. These books are not available on Amazon but there are some free comics books for Kindle which you may give a try.
I hope you find something interesting to read in my list. Also feel free to comment and share your favorite books in the comments below.
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