My 2021 reading list

One of the perks of having a full-time job during the past year is that I've been able to purchase books guilt-free. One of the drawbacks of having a full-time job is that I haven't had much opportunity to read them. If I wanted to dig into GoF Design Patterns, that's all I'd have time for outside of work for a month. I've started many of these books, then stopped a quarter of the way through when my job would get particularly chaotic.

With my current job wrapping up soon, I'll be taking some time off. One of my biggest priorities during this time is to read influential books about software development. I'd also plan to read many books covering entreprenuership and the business of software development.

I ordered eight more books today that should help me ride out the rest of the year. I plan to spend a few hours reading every day after I finish my job and have had a chance to catch my breath.

Here are the books that I intend to complete before the end of 2021.

Coding books

• Working in Public ✅️
• Practical Object-Oriented Design 🔖️
• GoF Design Patterns
• Domain Driven Design
• Clean Code
• Refactoring
• Domain Specific Languages
• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
• Head First Design Patterns (GoF is hard, okay?)
• Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition
• The Mythical Man-Month
• Mastering Ubuntu Server
• Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns

Business and entreprenuership books

• The Lean Startup *
• Getting Real *
• It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work *
• Zero to One
• Inspired
• Little Bets
• Tribes
• The Thank You Economy
• Crushing It
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
• Work Won't Love You Back

Design

• Refactoring UI *
• The Design of Everyday Things

* Books I've already read at least once

This list is enormous. I'm hoping to use this blog to capture some of my thoughts and impressions as I read these books. I suppose I'll check them off on this list too as I finish them.

I'm becoming increasingly skeptical of object-oriented programming's proclaimed benefits, so it's fitting that over half of the coding books are dedicated to OOP. I believe that there's a non-zero chance that I master the patterns and principles of object-oriented programming only to become a Lisp evangelist.