
Ask HN: What books do you keep on your desk? - blueintegral
What books do you find yourself referring to frequently? Any field, not just software engineering.
======
tequila_shot
I keep ~10 books at my desk. 9 of them are related to Javascript / Python /
Probability etc [1]., There is one book though, that I really love to see
everyday. Arabian Nights. That was the first book that was gifted to me when I
was 11. I always had it with me. It reminds me of my childhood when things get
too stressed and I read excerpts out of this book.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-
Activate-...](https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-Activate-
Guides/dp/0596805527) [2] [https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-
Kahneman/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-
Kahneman/dp/0374533555) [3][https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Probability-
Models-Tenth...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Probability-Models-Tenth-
Sheldon/dp/0123756863) [4] [https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Black-Book-
Important-Informat...](https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Black-Book-Important-
Informations/dp/3935494025)

~~~
alehul
Among the books, you included Thinking, Fast and Slow which really stands out,
and I was wondering what you gained from it, and how you'd summarize its
relevance/value?

I've been meaning to read it, and I think it's really interesting that it
provides enough value to be among the others.

~~~
eldavido
This is a fantastic book. It's essentially a summary of the author (Daniel
Kahneman's) academic career, worth reading because he's one of the founders of
"behavioral economics" \- the idea that economic-decision making should be
studied using real people and experiments--how they do it in psychology--
rather than a bunch of mathematical models on a blackboard which may or may
not accurately capture human behavior (despite being mathematically
usable/tractable).

If you read this book, you'll learn how absurdly influential Kahneman has
been: he did the original research on the endowment effect, anchoring, loss
aversion, and tons of other stuff you'll see quoted around here all the time.
He's also heavily cited by Taleb.

I wish more academics would write like this. It's a hard book to summarize
because it's long and completely free of bullshit. It's more or less 400 pages
of "here's the question, here's what we did, here were the results, we were
surprised because" 20-30 pages at a time. It's an outstanding book by an
outstanding professor.

~~~
icebraining
[https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/reconstruc...](https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-
of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-
page-1/#comment-1454)

~~~
kashyapc
Although the book still has tremendous value (FWIW, I've read it too), I hope
more people also read the above blog (& the comment on it by Kahneman
himself), to keep a balance of perspectives and the current "replication
crisis" in psychology studies.

Kahneman writes:

[quote] _What the blog gets absolutely right is that I placed too much faith
in underpowered studies. As pointed out in the blog, and earlier by Andrew
Gelman, there is a special irony in my mistake because the first paper that
Amos Tversky and I published was about the belief in the “law of small
numbers,” which allows researchers to trust the results of underpowered
studies with unreasonably small samples._ [/quote]

Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228712)

------
falcolas
Programming Python from O'Reilly. It helps lift my monitor nicely.

Honestly, I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful
reference in the long run. Programming languages just change too quickly; it's
the web or the code.

As for more meta-programming/business/interpersonal books, the few that I've
read are not ones I've ever had any real desire to go back to.

~~~
jasonkostempski
"I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful reference in
the long run"

Me either, but how else do you signal to other programmers how knowledgeable
and well-rounded you are in the field?

~~~
gordon_freeman
probably with the quality of your work? :)

------
matthewwiese
A few immediately come to mind:

\- Garner's _Modern American Usage_

\- _The Hardware Hacker_ (I am a _huge_ fan of bunnie)

\- _The Art of Electronics_ (Horowitz and Hill)

I don't really have "reference" books on my desk. Most rotate out quite
frequently depending on what I'm researching and writing about. These can
range from Raizman's _History of Modern Design_ to Lewis Carroll's _Symbolic
Logic_.

In addition I make plenty use of thesauruses. I have a few old ratty copies
but mostly do a quick flit over my keyboard to pull up synonyms. When a word
is on the tip of your tongue, looking up another that you know is related to
it in a thesaurus is the best way to efficiently jog your memory.

~~~
godelmachine
Interesting to see 2 books on electronics. May I ask the nature of your work?

~~~
matthewwiese
Certainly! But the answer may not be as interesting as you perhaps had hoped.
I'm just a hobbyist and have been slowly teaching myself the basics for the
past couple years. I keep the two books by my desk to double check
calculations and to aid my imagination when I've come up with something to
create.

So far my most proud accomplishment is designing a binary adder in EAGLE and
getting the PCB manufactured. I put all the files up on GitHub in the spirit
of open hardware, too:

[https://github.com/matthewwiese/binary-full-
adder](https://github.com/matthewwiese/binary-full-adder)

------
k1ns
Clean Code - Robert C. Martin: I got this book in college for a class and
enjoy referring to it when I feel that my code quality is starting to decay.

Computer Principles of Modeling and Simulation - T.G. Lewis/B.J. Smith: I
received this book as a gift from one of my favorite professors in college. It
was published in 1979, but I find the material still relevant when it comes to
introductory concepts of computer simulation.

Big Java Late Objects - Cay Horstmann: Another text from my time at college,
specifically from my data structures course. I keep it because I like the way
it explains fundamental data structures with well-written Java.

Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman/Elizabeth Robson: Another college
textbook, and one of my least favorite reads of all time, but I'll be damned
if it doesn't explain design patterns well enough for me to keep it around. I
refer to it now and then but only when I feel like punishing myself.

Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, & CSS - Robin Nixon: A dangerously outdated
introductory web development text that I bought when I was in high school. It
was the first programming book I ever purchased and I keep it around because I
enjoy remembering what it felt like to explore web development for the first
time. I've not referred to it in years, for obvious reasons, but it explained
full-stack web development very well and gave me a foundation that I've been
able to build on to this day. I remember standing in the tiny Computer Science
section at Barnes & Noble where I found it, taking it home and cracking it
open, and working through it until I had to make myself go to sleep. It's the
first programming book that really hooked me.

------
jason_slack
A few Stroustrup books.

A few Chinese language books (to help communicate with co-workers)

A few Algorithmic Trading related books as well as a few math books.

And, laugh if you wish, a few Buddhism books to help remind myself patience,
no negative energy, etc. If I am feeling frustrated I can read a few quick
thoughts.

~~~
alehul
The combination of algorithmic trading and Chinese makes me really curious
about your work environment; sounds awesome!

Could you share your favorite books on algorithmic trading? I've been
interested in it for a while.

~~~
jason_slack
I have been learning Chinese for a few years now :-) I was sick of translating
e-mails and documents and not being in on the "inside office humor and
wechats". Plus learning Chinese is a stress release for me as I spend time
practicing writing with a pen and paper.

~~~
haskal
I can agree that learning Chinese is a stress release. Just learning the
characters by itself is very calming and stress-relieving.

Also, all that Chinese Internet humor is a reward :-D

------
sg0
These are the ones right next to me now:

1\. Design Patterns (GoF) - This book is all about design, someday I aim to
really understand all the patterns.

2\. High Performance Parallelism Pearls Volume 2 (Reinders/Jeffers) - There
are couple of other books similar to this one. But, if you want to know how
myriad HPC applications make use of parallel programming models such as MPI
and OpenMP, this provides a good introduction.

3\. The Annotated C++ Reference Manual April 1995 hardbound edition
(Ellis/Stroustrup) -- What a fantastic little book, also got it for $4.95 at
Powell's bookstore in Portland :) IMO this books provides a gentle
introduction to C++, you can flip to any page and just start reading.

4\. Numerical Recipes in C (Press, Teukolsky, et al.) - If I need to quickly
prototype some scientific computation kernel, this is my go-to book.

5\. Effective C++ 3rd edition (Meyers) - I like to approach this book from the
back (i.e., indices), pick up a topic, and then read the contents one by one.
Repeat.

6\. Discovering Modern C++: An Intensive Course for Scientists, Engineers, and
Programmers (Gottschling) - I like and dislike certain portions of the book.
It definitely contains a lot of code explanations of C++ idioms, which helps a
beginner like me.

------
Yetanfou
A thick catalogue (ELFA Distrelec 'Elektronik och Automatisering' 2013-2014)
on which I placed a stationary laptop hooked up to a 24" monitor. On that
monitor I have access to more or less all the books in the world in one way or
another so I don't bother with paper versions anymore.

I actually just made an engine [1] for the Searx [2] meta-search engine to
allow it to search through a local library using the Recoll [3] search engine,
making life even easier as search over my personal library is now integrated
into the same search engine I use for other purposes. With full text search
using a query language [4] which resembled the defunct Xesam [5] language it
is above and beyond what the likes of Google Scholar offer.

While I'm in many ways something of a traditionalist - living on a 17th
century farm in Sweden, cooking on a wood-burning stove, riding sidecar Soviet
motorbikes etc - I made the move to a more or less paperless office quite a
while ago. The one thing I do not do is rely on third-party services to
accomplish this as those have proven to be both unreliable as well as
unreasonably inquisitive with regard to any personal details they can filch
from their users. I keep my own 'cloud', have my own (meta-)search engine, my
own mail/web/etc server, etc.

[1] [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx)

[2]
[https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/pull/1257](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/pull/1257)
and [https://github.com/koniu/recoll-
webui/pull/61](https://github.com/koniu/recoll-webui/pull/61)

[3]
[http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/](http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/)

[4]
[http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/usermanual/webhelp/docs...](http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/usermanual/webhelp/docs/RCL.SEARCH.LANG.html)

[5]
[http://www.xesam.org/main/XesamUserSearchLanguage95/](http://www.xesam.org/main/XesamUserSearchLanguage95/)

~~~
inimino
> I keep my own 'cloud', have my own (meta-)search engine, my own mail/web/etc
> server, etc.

What software do you use for this, and how much time does it take for you to
keep it running?

~~~
Yetanfou
The 'cloud' (...which is a silly word...) runs on Nextcloud. Keeping it up
doesn't cost much time at all, updates are close to painless for recent
releases. I made a few apps related to library maintenance (OPDS Catalog) and
reading (Reader, an epub/PDF/CBx reader)

Mail: Exim/Dovecot/Spamassassin/greylistd. Roundcube as a stand-alone web mail
interface, not used much since Nextcloud gained a usable mail client. About 8
hrs per year of upkeep.

Web: nginx (used to use lighttpd) as frontend to a host of different
applications and services running on two ancient Intel SS4200 servers. I'm
about to move the whole bunch to a somewhat more upscale server (building a
rack now to contain it plus some assorted network bits, disk cabinets and one
of those SS4200's, the bottom bit of which will be used as a fruit/herbs drier
so that heat won't go to waste...)

X2go to run X11 apps on remote locations

Searx for search, now also local search using Recoll and the mentioned plugin

GOGS for code hosting

I'm still running Trovebox as an image server, currently working on a media
server to combine video, image and audio.

Subsonic/Madsonic for remote audio and limited video service, the same library
is served by mpd on several machines in the network.

Some long-running experiments with XMPP (using Prosody) to use next to (and
eventually replace) Telegram. If Telegram opens their server code this might
not be necessary but I'm not holding my breath.

Eventually I'd like to end up with a plug-in replacement 'box' for many
'essential' network services, something which can run on modest hardware and
does not take much upkeep so it can be used by as wide a range of people as
possible. I'm not the first one, nor the only one to come up with this idea
but as I've been doing this for more than 22 years now for personal and family
use I do have some experience with the matter.

------
alehul
Gödel Escher Bach, or GEB.

It's one of the most informative books I've ever read with a really valuable
perspective to view information through. I find myself applying it more
frequently the more recently I've re-read it.

~~~
genjipress
Motion seconded. I read it first when I was barely ten, and even though I
barely understood a word of it, I made a vow to myself to keep coming back to
it until I did. I've been coming back to it constantly ever since, and I think
I finally get it. I think.

~~~
YouKnowBetter
I am freakishly hooked on this book and the thing I find, is that every 5 to
10 years I read it again, there are parts that realise I never understood (or
even truly read) when I read it before.

Mind you, I have that with particular novels & movies I return to, too.

------
engi_nerd
I keep a wide variety of references around this desk. Some of my favorites:

Manuel Lima's "Visual Complexity", "The Book of Circles", and "The Book of
Trees". These are useful as references and as visualization inspiration.

Jacques Bertin's "Semiology of Graphics". Gorgeous and immensely useful.

Desmond and Nicholas Higham's "MATLAB Guide, 3rd Edition", and Yair Altman's
"Accelerating MATLAB Performance". Both are invaluable for serious MATLAB
work.

Titus A. Beu's book on Numerical Programming is very good as a reference.

For anyone needing to work on military simulations, "Engineering Principles of
Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation" by Tolk is the best reference I
have found on the subject.

And TAOCP and CLRS are here for reference purposes as well.

------
donohoe
Commodore 64 User Guide

[http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_users_guide/c64-users_gu...](http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_users_guide/c64-users_guide.htm)

~~~
robodale
I read that book cover-to-cover and worked most of the examples back in my
middle school days. Animating that hot air balloon in the "Sprites"
section...memories!

------
CodeArtisan
\- _Structure and interpretation of computer programs_

More by nostalgia than by need

\- _The art of computer programmming_

\- _Hacker 's delight_

These two are of great help when doing programming challenges. Hacker's
delight is about bitwise tricks.

\- _Open Data Structures_

Useful for a quick refresh on data structures.

~~~
nicklaf
Love all those books. Hadn't heard of the last one though. Looks like it's
available online [1].

And actually, it has a few cool links on its homepage to similar books. In
particular, there is a link to this gem [2], which, for example, has a chapter
[3] on what appears to be a very interesting generalization [4] of the "master
theorem" of CLRS. Another good resource that pages links to seems to be [5],
which was recently mentioned on HN.

Of course, for an even deeper treatment of asymptotic analysis check out
Flajolet and Sedgewick [6]!

[1] [http://opendatastructures.org/](http://opendatastructures.org/)

[2]
[http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/](http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/)

[3]
[http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/notes/99-re...](http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/notes/99-recurrences.pdf)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akra%E2%80%93Bazzi_method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akra%E2%80%93Bazzi_method)

[5] (PDF warning)
[http://opendatastructures.org/mcs.pdf](http://opendatastructures.org/mcs.pdf)

[6] [http://ac.cs.princeton.edu/home/](http://ac.cs.princeton.edu/home/)

~~~
CodeArtisan
Algorithms, Etc. by Jeff Erickson chapter on dynamic programming is great,
especially that part:

 _In a nutshell, dynamic programming is recursion without repetition. Dynamic
programming algorithms store the solutions of intermediate subproblems, often
but not always in some kind of array or table. Many algorithms students make
the mistake of focusing on the table (because tables are easy and familiar)
instead of the much more important (and difficult) task of finding a correct
recurrence. As long as we memoize the correct recurrence, an explicit table
isn’t really necessary, but if the recursion is incorrect, nothing works.

Dynamic programming is not about filling in tables. It’s about smart
recursion!_

[http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/notes/05-dy...](http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/notes/05-dynprog.pdf)

------
cocacola1
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler

[https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/0671212095)

~~~
korbonits
This is such a good book. One of the few books I've re-read

------
ddingus
Machinists handbook from the 60's era. I value it for the pre computer ways of
thinking. Lots of gold in that one.

MOS 6502 series data book.

Moto 6809 Programmers Reference.

I actually had someone take me to the local Motorola office to get the 6809
book. Docs were free for the asking, and a kid asking was quite the event.
Aspects of that conversation were important to my life.

I still have occasion to do paid work, and enjoy fun projects with both chips,
and or variants seen today. These are few and far between, but very enjoyable.
Mostly perspective and nostalgia in these. It's my roots.

The One Minute Manager parable has served me well mentoring and leading.

On Writing by Stephen King. Being able to tell a story with clarity has far
more utility than one would expect. Besides, I want to write a novel one day.

The Art of Electronics, second edition. Probably need to update that one.

A Tektronix "How to use an Oscilloscope" book, well matched to my old, analog
400Mhz, 4 channel scope.

ANSI / ASME geometric dimensioning, tolerancing, standards books. 2D technical
communication remains significant in my life.

Recent addition: Mold making Handbook.

I need a good primer and a good polymer tech reference. Any suggestions?

"Pirates of the Asteroids", childhood sci-fi. Again, perspective. Was the
first one I really read through and got as a kid. Kept it, because asshole
reminder. 'Nuff said. It's just a personal totem.

~~~
ddingus
Correction to the above:

Engineering Handbook from the 60's era. Just glanced at it, and realized I had
the title wrong.

Man, there are so many great references in this thread. I've made a short
list, and will enjoy my next trip to Powell's books.

Thanks all.

------
organsnyder
The books on my desk are a combination of reference books and books that are
good conversation-starters (I've read them already and don't need them as
reference, but they're good for lending out to people, especially junior
devs).

Reference:

    
    
      - Effective Java (good for learning the mindset of developing backward-compatible APIs in any language)
      - Enterprise Integration Patterns (I work on an enterprise APIs team)
      - Designing Data-Intensive Applications
      - Camel in Action
    

Good for lending out:

    
    
      - The Phoenix Project
      - Making Work Visible
      - Effective DevOps
      - The Pragmatic Programmer
      - REST in Practice

------
hiram112
It's dusty, but I can't throw it away.

Effective Perl Programming.*

A long time ago, when I was a college kid with tons of free time, I'd sit for
hours at Borders* or Barnes & Noble and just read computer books. God bless
those employees for never kicking a 20-something poor kid out who lived on
free coffee refills, yet never bought books.

At the time, Perl was more significant. Something about its syntax made sense,
even though nowadays I cringe at it. Though Python is worse, in a different
way...

A decade later, and I still sometimes need to spit out the results of a bunch
of commands, iterate through them with some regex, format it, etc. Perl became
the internet's 'duct-tape' for a reason.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Perl-Programming-
Idiomatic-...](https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Perl-Programming-Idiomatic-
Development/dp/0321496949)

[2] [https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/borders-files-for-
ba...](https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/borders-files-for-bankruptcy/)

------
ambrosite
It has been a really long time (years) since I had to use any printed book as
reference material. For any question I have concerning a random factual
matter, I am always able to find an adequate answer online in less time than
it would take to reach for a book, look up the topic in the index, and then
turn to the appropriate page.

Where I still find books useful is in learning a new subject from scratch.
Reading an entire book from cover to cover gives me a broad mental overview of
the whole subject, and that is extremely helpful when trying to put the random
bits of knowledge I find online into context.

------
optimusmaximus
Desk Ref[1]. It's a ref for your desk.

It answers almost any question you might have pertaining to workshop
activities. Speeds, feeds, that kind of thing. I keep it in our break room in
case one of us needs to look something up. A lot of the younger technicians
are fresh out of school, and we also have apprentices on our shift. Having a
resource like this is invaluable for when they have a question, and none of us
old-timers are available to answer it because something major has broken and
we're scrambling to make it not-broken.

Our company prints its own training materials and we have a veritable library
of Standard Maintenance Procedures, as well as manufacturer's manuals for all
the different machines in our shop. We keep them indexed in a large filing
cabinet.

[1][https://www.amazon.com/Desk-Ref-Thomas-J-
Glover/dp/188507160...](https://www.amazon.com/Desk-Ref-Thomas-J-
Glover/dp/1885071604)

------
genjipress
Silence, John Cage

Man Against Myth, Barrows Dunham

The Elements Of Style, Strunk & White (4th ed.)

Telling Writing, Macrorie

The Zen Teaching Of Huang Po

The Pocket Pema Chödrön

Why I Write, George Orwell

Others come and go from time to time, but those stay.

~~~
natex
The Zen Teaching Of Huang Po is a wonderful. I have Record of Linji (Huang
Po's student) and Radical Zen: Sayings of Joshu (Huang Po's and Linji's
contemporary) on my desk.

------
imranq
Princeton Companion to Mathematics: this guide is phenomenal in introducing a
wide array of pure math topics. Just going through a few pages is hugely
inspiring and simultaneously ego-deflating

------
ohiovr
I use a couple of books to prop up my monitor. I also got a notebook.

~~~
chrisfinne
Ditto. Sad to say that my 2 Compact Edition(s) of the Oxford English
Dictionary have been relegated to a block-of-wood.

"What's my purpose?" "You pass butter." \-- Rick Sanchez

------
danieldk
I rely mostly on hypertext for referencing, mostly through Dash for macOS and
man pages. Books that I still occasionally reference:

\- Speech and Language Processing, Jurafsky & Martin

\- K&R

\- Sedgewick & Wayne, but more for teaching than anything else.

In a previous life:

\- The C++ Standard Library, Nicolai Josuttis,

\- C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4, Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield

\- The C++ Programming Language, Bjarne Stroustrup

\- Effective Java, Joshua Bloch

\- Scott Meyers' Effective C++ books.

~~~
3uclid
Do you write C++ by chance? ;)

------
noobly
I stumbled upon a dictionary of quotations of sorts (the quotes are organized
alphabetically by topic/theme) and oddly enough I’ve begun keeping that nearby
for the motivation, thought provocation and genuine entertainment those
snippets of texts provide. I’ve enjoyed it so much I’ll likely replace it with
a thick poetry book once I’ve exhausted it.

~~~
technics256
Sounds interesting. Have a link or title?

~~~
noobly
The title is “The New Webster’s Library of Practical Information: Quotations”.
ISBN: 0-7172-4565-9, and the only link I found that was representative of what
the set I have resembles is below[0], though it’s worth noting that it’s quite
overpriced in said link (afaik) so please don’t take this as a purchase
recommendation.

Apparently newer additions have been released as individual books (not as part
of a set), and I’m sure you could snag a free pdf of a dictionary of
quotations via libgen for a quick peek.

[0] [https://m.ebay.com/itm/The-New-Websters-Library-of-
Practical...](https://m.ebay.com/itm/The-New-Websters-Library-of-Practical-
Information-Lot-
of-7-Books-/151038415775?rmvSB=true&ul_ref=https%3A%2F%2Frover.ebay.com%2Frover%2F1%2F711-53200-19255-0%2F1%3Ficep_ff3%3D2%26pub%3D5574933636%26toolid%3D10001%26campid%3D5337487965%26customid%3D%26mpre%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww%252Eebay%252Ecom%252Fitm%252FThe-
New-Websters-Library-of-Practical-Information-Lot-
of-7-Books-%252F151038415775%26srcrot%3D711-53200-19255-0%26rvr_id%3D1489179160130&_mwBanner=1&ul_noapp=true)

------
agumonkey
\- Martin Henson - Elements of Functional Programming (old, and on purpose, I
like to have a sense of the pre trend FP mindset) I suggest everyone to try to
grab it (library or paid tree), the cover is so pretty
[https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/elements-
function...](https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/elements-functional-
languages/author/martin-henson/)

Had a bunch of books about electricity/electronics (google for 'best book
about ...')

Also bitcoin got me to hear about Statistics:

\- [http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL](http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL) \-
[https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/Papers/ESLII.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/Papers/ESLII.pdf)

Lastly, Queinnec LiSP is never far from reach

~~~
abhirag
On the topic of pretty covers, I love the covers of these two books a lot:

1\. The Art of the Metaobject Protocol ([https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-
metaobject-protocol](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-metaobject-protocol))

2\. The Art of Prolog ([https://www.amazon.com/Art-Prolog-Second-Programming-
Techniq...](https://www.amazon.com/Art-Prolog-Second-Programming-
Techniques/dp/B01NH0AJJK))

but haven't been able to find any other motivation to buy them. Also I have
never printed the Common Lisp Quick
Reference([http://clqr.boundp.org/clqr-a4-booklet-
all.pdf](http://clqr.boundp.org/clqr-a4-booklet-all.pdf)) because I always
imagine it having a really pretty cover, and everything I try just falls
short.

~~~
icebraining
Oh, we used the Art of Prolog in my sw engineering course. It's a good book,
although it doesn't cover the newer features of Prolog interpreters, like
Constraint Logic Programming, IIRC.

~~~
agumonkey
are there standard or near standard books about new topics in Logic
Programming ?

~~~
icebraining
I don't know, but there's a recommendation here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=869042](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=869042)

~~~
agumonkey
side note: found a book about geometry in prolog
[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-4-431-68036-9_...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-4-431-68036-9_6)

------
raker
The Boglehead's Guide to Investing, mostly because my coworkers frequently ask
for advice regarding their 401ks and IRAs, and it's a solid baseline for
frugal investing.

------
notananthem
None, I keep em on my bookshelf.

I refer to my design books. My favorite of all time, is "The Nature and Art of
Workmanship" by David Pye, given to me by a former woodturning mentor.

------
amichal
For many years "SQL for Smarties" by Joe Celko was on the desk along with
whatever specific technical reference i happened to need at the time.

There are no physical books now on the desk but the table of contents of some
of the older books remind me of what to google often enough

~~~
kerbalspacepro
Is SQL for Smarties more for software engineers or can it be used by analysts?

------
moreorless
The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

------
snake117
With respect to software I refer to Programming Elixir/Phoenix (although both
Programming Elixir 1.6/Phoenix 1.4 should be released soon). I'm also going
through Functional Web Development with Elixir, OTP, and Phoenix by Lance
Halvorsen at the moment.

Outside of software I have:

\- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

\- Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

\- Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field

\- Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

One book that I have been meaning to add next to Syd Field's Screenplay is
Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting by
Robert McKee.

------
kfrzcode
"Code Complete 2nd Ed." \- McConnell "DevOps Handbook" \- Gene Kim et al "Deep
Work" \- Cal Newport "Tools of Titans" \- Tim Ferris "Bleeding Edge" \- Thomas
Pynchon

------
fotbr
Sun Tzu's The Art of War, O'Reilly's SQL Pocket Guide, Numerical Recipes in
C++, an old GW-Basic manual, and a reprint of the first edition of Machinery's
Handbook.

Most of my work is boring old enterprise apps in java, c# or c++; the GW-Basic
manual is a relic from my first computer that I keep around for sentimental
reasons. Numerical Recipes is referred to on occasion, as is the SQL pocket
guide, the other two are good for taking a 5 minute break from things.

------
byteface
I use a library so have about 10+ on rotation every 2 weeks covering every
topic. graphic novels, reference books, programming books, science books. with
membership to 3 libraries it's much better than owning them and letting the
get dusty on a shelf. I admit this came as a result of moving country and
having to sell all my books. I will never go back to owning books I have so
much variety now. public libraries are the greatest institution to exist.

------
rla3rd
[https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-
Maste...](https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-
Master/dp/020161622X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522876509&sr=8-1&keywords=pragmatic+programmer)

[https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Elixir-1-3-Functional-
Con...](https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Elixir-1-3-Functional-
Concurrent/dp/168050200X/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522876774&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=robert+thomas+elixir)

[https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Learning-Python-Techniques-
Pr...](https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Learning-Python-Techniques-
Predictive/dp/1118961749/ref=sr_1_36?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522876857&sr=1-36&keywords=python+machine+learning)

[https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Arbitrage-Deskbook-
Stephane-...](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Arbitrage-Deskbook-Stephane-
Reverre/dp/0071359958/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522876893&sr=1-2-fkmr1&keywords=the+complete+arbitrage+handbook#customerReviews)

------
cosinetau
Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman is something that I feel calls to me at times,
and my bibleworn copy often sits on my workbench. I even have some sections
memorized.

------
roberto
"Semiology of Graphics", by Jacques Bertin. Originally published in 1967, it
describes principles of graphic communication, similar to Tufte's work.

------
sremani
Taleb's incerto. [Anti-Fragile, Fooled by randomness, Black Swan, Skin in the
game]

Scott Adams' [How to fail at Almost every thing and still win big]

Meditations by marcus arelius

------
LukeShu
Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment

It's often a better reference than the POSIX spec is.

~~~
vram22
On that topic, I really liked Advanced Unix Programming by Marc Rochkind. [1]
It was an early Unix programming book and covered very well how to correctly
use many important Unix system calls and showed how to write some non-trivial
apps including a simple DBMS, using them. IIRC I read recently that he is
coming out with a new edition after many years:

[http://basepath.com/aup/](http://basepath.com/aup/)

[1] I got to read it because it used to be shipped for free with all HP-UX
servers for some time, when I was working in an HP joint venture company.

------
knightofmars
The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product
Development

by Donald G. Reinertsen

[https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Product-Development-
Flow-G...](https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Product-Development-Flow-
Generation/dp/1935401009)

------
PoachedSausage
The Art of Electronics, Third Edition by Horowitz & Hill

------
wyclif
Adams, Douglas. _The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy_

Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham. _Brewer 's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_

Euclid, _Elements of Geometry_

Fuller, Buckminster. _Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth_

Greene, Robert. _The 48 Laws of Power_

Kernighan & Ritchie. _The C Programming Language_

 _The King James Bible_

Polya, George. _How to Solve It_

------
Mindstormy
Overcoming Gravity

For most of my life never really had an interest in working out but learning
more about calisthenics and body weight fitness in general has really changed
things for me in a positive way, and this book really shows how to progress
without access to weights or a gym.

------
jquinby
_Thinking in Systems_ by Donella Meadows

 _Getting to Yes_ by Roger Fisher and William Ury

 _ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications_

 _ARRL Antenna Book_

 _American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Ed._

Bible/Lectionary, Breviary, and Catechism

If fiction counts, I will probably never delete _Flatland_ or the complete
Joseph Conrad from my Kindle.

------
Yahivin
Right now: Modern Man in Search of a Soul, C. G. Jung

~~~
justuseapen
Just finished that! So good. Jung was a genius.

Coincidentally, I have The Undiscovered Self sitting on my desk at this
moment.

~~~
jjdredd
Just recently tried reading that. Unfortunately it was too hard for me. Could
be because of that the book seemed too vague.

------
madengr
None. Need to be prepared to leave at a moments notice. I used to keep a large
technical library, but now it is at home. After having seen engineers with 25
years of service walked out the door with zero notice, I will be prepared to
do the same.

~~~
Symbiote
That sounds like an awful environment.

Someone I know was "walked out" from the UK Ministry of Defence. He wasn't
allowed to touch anything after being informed, but he was taken to his desk
and asked what was his -- pictures of his children and so on.

(British employment law requires employers to give a notice period, but the
employee doesn't have to be at work. This person would have then had three-six
months "gardening leave" on full pay.)

~~~
madengr
One defense contractor pulled all the keyboards over lunch break. Employees
return from lunch with a pink slip in place of the keyboard.

------
yomritoyj
Always within arm's reach at both home and work:

Rudin, Real and Complex Analysis

Halmos, Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces

Billingsley, Probability and Measure

Kelley, General Topology

Lang, Undergraduate Algebra

Simmons, Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis

Parthasarathy, Probability Measures on Metric Spaces

Whinston, Green and Mas-Colell, Microeconomic Theory

------
tejinderss
Refactoring by Martin Fowler. Working Effectively with legacy code by Michael
Feathers

------
m3h
"A Brief History of Time" and "Universe in a nutshell" are always there. I
never get tired of reading a random page from those books.

I have nothing programming related on my desk; we have Google to thanks for
that.

------
jhedwards
_Amphigorey Too_ by Edward Gorey. When I've been staring at a computer screen
and thinking about logic for too long it's nice to look at some beautiful hand
drawn illustrations and enjoy some surreal humor.

------
deostroll
Sorry, we have a clean desk policy... :-(

------
MarlonPro
\- Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio \- Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss
\- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

~10 SQL Server/DW/BI books (not just on the desk but scattered everywhere)

------
lettergram
My Emacs manual, only book I keep on my desk at the moment. Truth is, if I'm
going to read for pleasure I go to my bookshelf. I don't want to read where I
work.

------
nicholast
Hello Hacker folks. Have previously shared a few essays in this forum, since
topic of the day is book recommendations coincidentally recently published a
collection of books that had inspired many of these essays - available on
medium if you're interested. Cheers.

[https://medium.com/@_NicT_/recommended-further-reading-
ae463...](https://medium.com/@_NicT_/recommended-further-reading-ae463e611baa)

------
Shivam_Dewan
-Design of everyday things

-Sapiens : A brief history of humankind

-Zen pencils

\- Book of Life - By J. Krishnamurti

------
thecodeboy
The Bible

~~~
Ascetik
Douay-Rheims 1899 Version Here.

------
InitialLastName
As a circuit designer/embedded programmer:

\- USB Complete 4th ed (Axelson)

\- Electromagnetic Compatibility (Ott)

\- Small Signal Audio Design (Self)

\- Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus

\- Verilog by Example (a.k.a. the Little Blue Book) (Readler)

\- Mouser Catalog

------
stinos
Not a book, but an ASCII table comes in handy ever so often

~~~
52-6F-62
Yup. I work in a pretty pared down cubicle space and prefer not to leave my
books at work— one of those dorks with a wall of them in my apartment.

But I _do_ have an Ascii table and a DEC/HEX/OCT/BIN chart so that I can just
glance up if I'm not feeling particularly quick.

------
tta
Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann.

~~~
cdpolyme
Same here. Only book that stays on my desk. Others rotate.

------
colonelxc
I use CLRS and the 2600 book as monitor risers.

More seriously, I generally don't re-read books. One exception is The Cuckoo's
Egg, which I reread every ~5 years.

~~~
nkassis
"One exception is The Cuckoo's Egg, which I reread every ~5 years."

I do too, others I like to reread "hackers" by Steven Levy and Showstopper by
G. Pascal Zachary. I don't know why but I always find these books highly
entertaining.

Glad I'm not alone.

------
AKdeBerg
"The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg.....I have other good books too but
this one is an asset...Every desk should have it

~~~
tcopeland
Interesting, that's on the Army Advanced Situational Awareness reading list
([http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/316thCav/ASA/ReadingList.h...](http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/316thCav/ASA/ReadingList.html)).

~~~
AKdeBerg
The link is not working for me :(

~~~
tcopeland
Here's a direct link to the PDF:

[http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/316thCav/ASA/content/pdf/A...](http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/316thCav/ASA/content/pdf/ASA%20Reading%20List.pdf)

------
protomok
~ Books => I have most in digital and physical copies ~

\- The C Programming Language (2nd edition) - Brian Kerningham / Denis Ritchie

\- The C++ Programming Language (4th edition which discuss C++11) - Stroustrup

\- Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software - GoF

\- Effective C++, Effective Modern C++ - Scott Meyers

~ Specifications ~

\- C99 draft spec, C++11 draft spec (too cheap to buy official copies!)

------
vinchuco
Clicky links for most mentions. (not all here)
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ekA4jSrY4xOtQW6OCL4x...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ekA4jSrY4xOtQW6OCL4xjNnK2DahqeZAfMyHSpYNbFg/edit?usp=sharing)

------
minieggs
SICP, ANSI CL, and Real World OCaml.

Nothing related to my day job in JS land, just fun reading material for my
free time.

------
d6de964
I've long ago recycled or burned most of my books as no library would take
them. I only have a leather bound encyclopedia remaining in my house which I
also want to get rid off. So much money poured down the drain... I don't find
it enjoyable re-reading the same stuff.

------
kybernetikos
Most recently, I've been keeping Character Strengths and Virtues on my desk.
It's a catalogue of the things that we think are good about human psychology.
It's a good conversation starter, and fun to flip through and read sections.

------
8bitsrule
Joel Whitburn's "Top 40 Hits". "Computer Music" by Dodge and Jerse. Several
others have been displaced by the web ... or obsoleted by the inexorable March
of Science. (Life was more interesting before surface-mount.)

------
PascLeRasc
The Hardware Hacker by Bunnie Huang. It's great for casual reading and some
reference to how electronics are manufactured.

UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook. I have an old version but it's
also great material and excellent writing.

~~~
vram22
>UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook.

That's a great book. I've read parts of both the Unix and later Linux
versions.

Edit: It also reminded me of the O'Reilly book Unix Power Tools - another
classic. I had bought it early on and read almost the whole thing. Both it and
the Handbook are quite thick, too.

------
interatx
I don't have any physical books on my desk[1]. Most of the stuff I usually
need is online and takes less time than thumbing through books & indexes.

[1] I think this is most likely situation but wasn't sure if more would answer
this.

------
idubrov
1\. Digital Design and Computer Architecture: ARM Edition

2\. The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition

3\. The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self

(in backpack until I finish it). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good
People Turn Evil

------
mindcrime
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BhKKZ9vAWiQ/?taken-
by=fogbeam_ph...](https://www.instagram.com/p/BhKKZ9vAWiQ/?taken-
by=fogbeam_phil)

------
hknd
None, I'm using google.

------
gradyj
\- Programming Interviews Exposed \- Head First Design Patterns \- Clean Code

I'm a junior in my first job and I've had these books in my personal library
for a while now. Incredible helpful

~~~
vollmond
After Clean Code, also check out The Clean Coder. Less technical, more
career/project focused.

There's also Clean Architecture, but I haven't read that one yet.

------
frenchie4111
The Pragmatic Programmer

------
KeepTalking
Deep C Secrets 50 Effective C++ tips Design patterns Elements of ReUsable OO
software Several short sentences about writing The official Ted guide to
speaking

------
psyc
An unlined drawing pad, and graph paper. That's all.

~~~
kyberias
Those are not books are they?

~~~
psyc
They are something like books once I'm done with them.

------
brailsafe
ASP.Net 4 and Java Programming used to hold up my monitor

------
kyberias
These days:

    
    
      - Martin: Clean Code
      - Martin: Clean Architecture
      - Fowler: Refactoring
      - Feathers: Working Effectively with legacy code

------
ppod
"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" by Tufte. A pretty book, and
occasionally useful as a reference too.

------
rokhayakebe
Meditations: Epictetus, Social Contract: Rousseau, The Discipline of Market
Leaders

Every now and then I open these at a random page and read.

------
royalghost
Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes

It reminds me that life is suppose to be fun and not just about algorithm and
technologies!

------
Finnucane
There's a copy of The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien on the floor next to my
bed. Does that count?

------
weitzj
Building Evolutionary Architectures: Support Constant Change

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software

------
lowbloodsugar
Keeping Found Things Found, William Jones, Morgan Kaufmann press.

The study and practice of personal information management.

------
csmckay
The Elements of Style: Strunk and White

------
icc97
Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties.

Tufte's Visual Display of Quantitive Information.

Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things.

------
justuseapen
The C Programming Language, Metaprogramming Elixir, Master and Margarita, and
The Undiscovered Self.

------
mmumma
Clean Code and Clean Architecture

------
calebm
I want to get one of those giant XML bibles and keep it on my desk just to
troll people.

------
mcphail
Zero to One by Peter Thiel and The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy by
Ryan Holiday

------
mathieubordere
Introduction to Algorithms (CLRS) and The Linux Programming Interface
(Kerrisk)

------
pavlov
"Signs and Symbols: Their Design and Meaning" by Adrian Frutiger

------
porsager
_Ethics of Liberty_ by Murray Rothbard

 _Economics in One Lesson_ by Henry Hazlitt

------
oneplane
A MacBook.

------
flaviocopes
The Internet for Dummies, under my monitor stand to make it a bit higher

------
bikamonki
I keep one: www.google.com

------
Mongoose
DNS and BIND, 5th Edition

------
georgewsinger
By far the #1 book I keep referring to and re-reading: Zero to One.

------
scaryclam
Just one book: my notebook. Everything else is on the bookshelf.

------
kd5bjo
A dictionary written in the language I'm trying to learn

------
lyk
Machinery's Handbook and some GD&T reference books.

------
ojuara
Programming Erlang.

------
nextos
Halmos & Rudin.

~~~
aportnoy
FDVS or set theory? Baby or Papa?

~~~
nextos
FDVS and baby, but I will upgrade to papa sometime!

------
tsguo
Stephen Hawking- A Brief History of Time

Makes my life feel ephemeral and therefore more precious

[https://amzn.to/2Jm01dG](https://amzn.to/2Jm01dG)

------
memonkey
The Underachiever's Guide To Happiness

------
Kajayacht
Perl Pocket Reference from O'Reilly

------
Kapura
Currently I have:

\- Procedural Generation in Game Design

\- The Art of Halo 3

\- PUBG + Cats

~~~
bovermyer
What is that last one?

~~~
jjdredd
This one, I suppose. Pretty cute: [https://justduet.cat/products/pubg-cats-
inktober-zine](https://justduet.cat/products/pubg-cats-inktober-zine)

------
GiorgioG
\- Kubernetes in Action

\- Get Programming with F#

------
vuyani
The C Programming Language

------
hodl
8 shades of grey

------
pruthvishetty
* Sapiens

* The Intelligent Investor

* Malgudi Days

------
jackconnor
Code Complete

------
cup-of-tea
TAOCP always finds its way back to my desk. Volume 2 is here at the moment. I
don't really keep any books as references, though. I have kept K&R on my desk
before but these days I mostly use online documentation.

------
megaman22
Right now, Learn Git in a Month of Lunches, and Learn Windows Powershell in a
Month of Lunches.

Also Functional Programming in C#.

I'm a bit of a Manning junkie

