Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

Like Accidental Empires, this is one of those books that people in the software industry probably should read but mostly don’t. Maybe knowing the history and the characters that got us to our current state may not make a big difference day-to-day, but I think it allows us to appreciate what we have, or at least understand some of the starting conditions.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

The rule is no reviews or justification, but I did for this book [affiliate link]. It’s such a recent one that it can’t possibly have influenced me, and that’s true. However, I included it because it gives a name to things that I’ve long believed or understood. It’s nice to realise you have a “belief system” rather than just a random collection of thoughts and opinions.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

I almost didn’t include this since I inadvertently created a new “one book per author” rule. (I did resist adding Dirk Gently.)

This book [affiliate link] is about Douglas Adams adventures visiting some of the most endangered creatures on the planet. Not the most endangered necessarily, but it includes a nice cross-section, including the cute and the scary.

This was Adams’ induction into nature conservations — something that he took seriously in later life — and you can feel his enthusiasm. The passion is (almost) catching.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

I have previously joked that if you could somehow combine Neal Stephenson and Douglas Coupland, you’d end up with a dense, well-researched, character driven story.

Over the years, Stephenson has got better at writing people and Coupland has added more plot. Just as I argue that Snow Crash was the sweet spot for Stephenson, I think that Microserfs is for Coupland. (Don’t @ me. That’s an opinion, not an objective truth.)

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

I’m not sure how much of backstory of this [affiliate link] book I understood when I first read it, but I enjoyed the ride so much that I ended up doing some research into parts of the story. This enhanced my appreciation of the book, since Stephenson had clearly done the same research!

Stephenson’s later books took this mingling of fiction and history and science to the next level, but this was the first of his books that I read and, in my mind, is still the sweet spot.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

In many ways, this choice [affiliate link] represents travel writing in general. Theroux has written a lot of books that could fit the bill. The reason I include this one is that, towards the end, there’s a very much warts-and-all description of his return journey. He’s bored and hungry and homesick. Many writers would have skipped this part, or at least glossed over the worst parts, but travel isn’t all glamour. Its inclusion here is what makes it a classic.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

Many people in the computer industry don’t understand how we got here. Well, maybe not here. Due to the passage of time, it would be how we got to the mid-nineties.

This book [affiliate link] does not pretend to be objective or complete, but talks about both the technology and the people that got us from the invention of transistors to Windows PC. What I love about it is that it focuses on the people rather than the technology, yet still manages to put the technology into perspective. The writing is also very chatty and full of character. So much tech history is stodgy or dull or inaccurate. Empires is none of those things.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

At some point I realised I would never be a great programmer. It’s possible that point came when I read this book, where Bentley [affiliate link] iterates on a number of problems, gradually improving them. Maybe I couldn’t do what the author does, but it’s a fascinating, well written journey.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

William Boyd is a great novelist [affiliate link], and this is (possibly) my favourite of his. The impact it’s had on me, in a way, is that the main character is very much flawed. It’s good to be reminded that no one is perfect.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

I was given the first edition of Code Complete [affiliate link] in a training course in my first job, post-university. My Computer Science degree covered a number of sophisticated but impractical techniques for software engineering, the most memorable being testing. By comparison, Code Compete was incredibly refreshing. Its advice is practical and pragmatic, yet based on solid research and experience. It also rarely says “this is the way” to do something. Instead, it will list the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches. I treat with suspicion anyone who advocates for One True Way to do something.