
Ask HN: What three books impacted your career the most? - saasinator
A young version of yourself is about to start their career and you can give them three books, but only three books, what would they be?
======
combatentropy
1\. The Bible. It encourages me to live in a way that's also good for others,
especially when I'm feeling selfish and cynical, and it teaches me how to
interact with them in a healthy way (e.g. the book of Proverbs).

2\. The Elements of Style. I always enjoyed writing, but at first school
taught me to write in a flowery, longwinded way. This was the book that
cracked the code for me to good writing. It dispelled a lot of self-serving
and ultimately self-defeating habits and paved the way to clean, helpful
English. When I finally got into programming in my late twenties, I found that
many of the same principles make good code.

3\. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. This is like the Elements
of Style but for graphs. Again, it encouraged me to cut through the hype and
deliver the content as clearly and succinctly as possible --- to serve the
reader, not stroke my ego.

------
EnderMB
1) Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell: I bought this book after it was referenced in
one of Alex Ferguson's books. It's a fascinating tale of how people became to
be successful by being the right person in the right environment at the right
time, from how Bill Gates dominated the world of software, to how The Beatles
became one of the best bands in the world. It's a great reminder that a
mixture of hard work, the right environment, and dumb luck will help you do
well.

2) C# in Depth by Jon Skeet: Buying and reading this book is what led me to
continue down the deep rabbit hole of .NET development, and following the C#
language from version 1 onwards via the book is a great way to appreciate the
language, as well as use it. As someone that writes C# daily this is the main
book I recommend to existing devs.

3) Introduction to Algorithms by CLRS: This is a bit of a cheat, because I've
only glanced at various pages of this book. I have a degree in Computer
Science, but my maths knowledge is lacking (to put it kindly), so despite my
degree I have only a practical understanding of a lot of the algorithms talked
about in the book. It's been my goal for years to build up my knowledge of
maths to the point where I can read this book cover-to-cover and actually
understand what's going on. I'm still not there, but hopefully one day I'll
make it.

~~~
hirakchatterjee
I can't agree more on #3. But there are few other books which take a less
mathematical approach and I have found it quite useful.

~~~
EnderMB
I've picked up quite a few over the years, with my favourite being Algorithms
by Sedgewick.

With that being said, I've tried to teach myself about the most important data
structures and algorithms, but I find that I'm not "really" understanding
them, and am purely just remembering the gist of what I need to know.

Perhaps it's imposter syndrome, but despite being a passable developer,
there's a part of me that feels that I need to be able to read the CLRS book
and actually understand what's going on, because until I can read that book I
don't feel that I know the ins-and-outs of these algorithms.

------
xiaoma
1) _Hackers and Painters_ , by Paul Graham—This book had a huge influence on
me and is why I left a successful and growing low tech business in Asia to
move to California and become a software engineer.

2) _Zero to One_ , by Peter Thiel—Zero to one opened my eyes to several angles
of business that I hadn't been thinking about. It made me think much harder
about making long-term plans towards a concrete goal, even if changes must be
made along the way. It also clarified my thoughts about the nature of
competition and non-conformity. Courage is in even shorter supply than genius.

3\. _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_ , by Joseph Campbell—While it's not a
business book, this book is a deep look at mythology and psychology. I find it
helpful both for understanding people and for understanding myself.

~~~
nibs
Same top two, 3) Softwar: Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds

------
msluyter
1\. Godel, Escher, Bach -- Because it sparked my interest and got me started
down the path.

2\. The Pragmatic Programmer -- a classic. Reminds me that I need to re-read
it.

3\. Effective Oracle by Design, by Tom Kyte -- Not that I use Oracle any more,
thankfully, but really provided a lot of insight about how databases function
and how it pays to deeply understand their internals when writing webapps.

~~~
theincredulousk
+1 on the Pragmatic Programmer.

For anyone that is ready to stop consuming themselves with all things esoteric
and start writing generally good code by default.

If more devs followed the relatively simple patterns and practices in this
book the phrase "legacy code" might not be a curse-word.

------
jjgreen
Sartre's "Nausea", which demonstrates the pointless nothingness of life, so
one should not get too stressed out at work because Frank doesn't like your
indentation style but that's how everyone at university does it ...

------
l33tbro
Practical skills are easily acquired. Personal skills and greater self-
awareness are what really fast-track you.

1) Scott Adams 'How to fail at almost everything' for life strategy.

2) Robert Glover's 'No more Mr Nice Guy' for assertiveness and being your
authentic self no matter what.

3) As cliche as it is, 'The Power of Now' is a great source to return to in
times of personal and professional woes.

Good luck and Godspeed in your career(s).

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I've not read any of those, but the title of #2 struck a chord.

I remember years ago complaining to someone that the manager of a project
whose code I needed kept refusing to fix the showstopping bugs in it. His
answer was "go over his head to _his_ manager. No more Mr Nice Guy."

I thought it over and he was right: I'd tried being reasonable for as long as
I could and this guy was preventing me from doing my job properly. I spoke to
his manager (who I had a great relationship with BTW) and the problem was
fixed literally within minutes.

Since then I've taken that approach to heart: either work with me or get the
hell out of my way because I won't be held back.

~~~
benjohnson
As a christian, I found _parts_ of No More Mr. Nice Guy a bit less worthy, but
I can highly recommend the book as a whole if you find yourself unbalanced.

The author isn't recommending anybody to be a jerk, but his admonitions to
being more forthright, up-front, and a bit less scheming will help people find
balance. And in consequence actually treating people with respect rather than
project a somewhat false "nice-guy" facade.

------
lazyjones
First part of the question (actual influences):

1) Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing (not strictly a book).
[http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/](http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/)

2) The "Dragon Book"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Compiler_Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Compiler_Design)

3) Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach

Second part (at hindsight):

1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Dad_Poor_Dad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Dad_Poor_Dad)
(cheesy, but useful)

2) [http://toddkashdan.com/upside.php](http://toddkashdan.com/upside.php)

3) [https://www.schranner.com/de/news/2012/04/16/-verhandeln-
im-...](https://www.schranner.com/de/news/2012/04/16/-verhandeln-im-
grenzbereich-und-teure-fehler-jetzt-auch-im-apple-ibook-store) \- German book
about negotiations written by an experienced hostage negotiator.

------
brikis98
1\. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle.

This may sound like an odd one, but years ago, I almost never took the time to
read. My girlfriend, who knew that I loved Sherlock Holmes books when I was
younger, convinced me to try this book as an audiobook while I did my ~40
minute commute to work. I was skeptical, but within days, I was hooked. It
made my work commute much more interesting (a British person was reading me
Sherlock Holmes!); then I started listening to audiobooks during all my
driving (instead of wasting time, I can learn!); then I got an iPod, put
audiobooks on that, and started listening to them during all sorts of odd
chores (e.g. cleaning, walking, biking); after that, I was so hooked on books,
that I started making time to read them too. This had a profoundly
transformative effect on my career.

2\. "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries.

I got a copy of this book when I went to a talk by Eric Ries. Eric seemed like
a humble, down-to-earth person and helped dispel the notion that to be a
successful entrepreneur, you need to be a prescient, superhero, god-like
visionary. Instead, what you need to do is to treat your startup and product
ideas as hypotheses and test them, as quickly and cheaply as you can (i.e.
lean development, MVPs, etc). This fit very well with what I had seen in the
real world and with how I thought about problem solving as a software
engineer, and gave me a lot of confidence to try out many of my ideas. Since
then, I've used these ideas to start a company
([http://www.gruntwork.io/](http://www.gruntwork.io/)) and written quite a bit
on what I learned, including an article on The Macro about MVPs
([http://themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-
product-...](http://themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-product-
process/)).

3\. "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser.

If Conan Doyle taught me about the fun of reading, then William Zinsser taught
me about the fun of writing. If you want to learn how to write, what it's like
to write, or why you should write ("Writing is not a special language owned by
the English teacher. Writing is thinking on paper."), it's hard to find a
better guide. This book significantly improved my writing skills and even gave
me the confidence to write a book ([http://www.hello-
startup.net/](http://www.hello-startup.net/)).

~~~
combatentropy
> "On Writing Well"

Love that book

------
saasinator
I'll add my current three,

    
    
        1) "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
        2) "The War of Art" 
        3) "The Pragmatic Programmer"

~~~
devilsavocado
Can you explain what you liked about The War of Art? I read it because I have
seen it mentioned on this site many times, but I did not enjoy it at all. I
found that the first two sections contained very little useful information,
and the third got somewhat silly when it started evoking angels and muses. I
could see it being a motivational read for some?

I find it strange that it's mentioned in the same context as your #1 and #3,
which I think are absolutely essential.

------
brudgers
As a reader of books, one of the good things about growing older is that the
books the younger version of myself read are books that this older version of
myself hasn't and there is great pleasure in rereading the books the younger
version of myself read as the older person I am.

And that makes this exercise impossible for me. The books I would tell the
younger version of myself to read wouldn't resonate the same way (or not at
all) with that other person I used to be. Picking books that might have
appealed to the younger version of myself accurately would mean picking the
books I actually read -- e.g. _The Fifth Discipline_ \-- and not books that
the younger version of myself tried to read but couldn't but that I read and
recommend today: e.g. _TAoCP_.

Part of the complexity is that the world in which I read books today is
radically different from that of my younger self. Today I can get a MIX
interpreter from the internet [1]...there's even help on StackOverflow. My
younger self couldn't because even in the time when there was an internet
bandwidth was low and Google didn't exist.

Like I said it's great to pick up a good book and realize it is better than I
remember when I remember it being really good, but it's hard to see how it
could have been better for my younger self.

1\. _Neuromancer_

2\. _Blood Meridian_

3\. _A Pattern Language_

[1]:[https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/precise/mixal/](https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/precise/mixal/)

------
e19293001
1\. Assembly Language and Computer Architecture Using C++ and Java , Course
Technology, 2004 by Anthony J. Dos Reis

2\. Compiler Construction Using Java, JavaCC, and Yacc, IEEE/Wiley, 2012 by
Anthony J. Dos Reis

3\. An Introduction to Functional Programming Through Lambda Calculus by Greg
Michaelson

I'm lazy now so just look on my previous comment:

[0] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12099943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12099943)

------
GeneWilburn
The C Programming Language, Kernighan and Ritchie, for its simple elegance.

The Elements of Style, Strunk & White. On clear writing.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (series), Douglas Adams. So you don't take
yourself too seriously.

------
justushamalaine
Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

How I raised myself from failure to success in selling, Frank Bettger

Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Daniela Meadows

Most important thing is to get up and start doing stuff, understand how you
personally f$$k things up and reap benifits of compound interest in personal
development. I think these three bookshave a lot of information that is usable
in any career or path one might choose.

~~~
e_tm_
Donella* Meadows is the author of #3

Great primer for folks unfamiliar with systems engineering.

------
samblr
If I were to go back and be young - I would dedicate myself to read plenty of
books and probably find three genres which would appeal. A measure of a good
book is how likely will it lead you to read another great book or how likely
is that it changes the perception of another book/knowledge or makes you
question-argue fundamental value systems. Wish there was kind of backlink
algorithm to measure a book like that. I've found below genre-and-author that
appeal more over time and you keep going back to them.

> Tech : C - Kernighan & Ritchie (may be a good python/nodejs book today).

> About tech people : Made in Japan - The Google Speaks - The Everything store
> - Hatching Twitter - Steve Jobs - Zero to One - Hard things about hard
> things.

> About non-tech people : Founding fathers - Obama - Einstein - Darwin -
> Feyman - Teresa - Montessori - Gandhi - Mandela - Che Guevera - Churchill.

> Last but important: Tolstoy - Plato - Enlightenment-Era-Books -
> Religions(all) - Military fitness.

------
LA_Banker
1\. "Meditations" – Marcus Aurelius

2\. "The Practicing Mind" – Thomas Sterner

3\. "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" – Atul Gawande (I'm not a
surgeon; the principles herein are universal)

(honorable mention: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" – Dale Carnegie;
various biographies by Caro and Chernow)

------
amerkhalid
1\. Head First Design Patterns - Didn't learn patterns in school. This book
made a lot of difference in communication with more experienced programmers.

2\. Pragmatic Programmer - A classic, learned many practical tips for day to
day programming job.

3\. Founders at Work - Motivated me to work on my side projects and be
constantly learning.

~~~
re_todd
Head First Design Patterns is awesome. I read a couple other Design Pattern
books, but didn't really get it. I didn't want to buy a "Head First" book
because it looked kind of silly, but this book has finally opened my eyes to
what Design Patterns are about.

------
naboavida
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman. Learn why we're fools by nature.

Incerto - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (4 volumes, with The Black Swan as my
favourite). Learn how not to be a fool, or at least, minimize its impacts.

The Startup Owner's Manual - Steve Blank. Learn how to find your way through
the market.

------
thorin
Code complete was a great early read for someone who already knew the basics
of programming

L'etranger Albert Camus, for the same reasons as jjgreen

A Herbert Shilt book on C programming but could have been K&R instead, was
part of the process from moving from simple basic coding to software
development

------
fogus
"Thinking Forth" by Leo Brodie --> [http://thinking-
forth.sourceforge.net/](http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/)

"How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built" by Stewart Brand -->
[http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/watch-stewart-
brands-6-pa...](http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/watch-stewart-
brands-6-part-series-how-buildings-learn-with-music-by-brian-eno.html)

"Programmer's Guide to the 1802" by Tom Swan -->
[http://www.tomswan.com/store/](http://www.tomswan.com/store/)

------
r2r
1\. "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" by Robert Pirsig

2\. "The art of war" by Sun Tzu

3\. "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius

------
przeor
1) "how life imitates chess" Garry Kasparov

2) "how life imitates chess" Garry Kasparov

3) "how life imitates chess" Garry Kasparov

Highly recommended, very good read and smart book. I would call it the modern
version of The Art of War.

~~~
1_listerine_pls
Such a coincidence that they have the same title and author name.

------
benkarst
1\. "The Age of Spiritual Machines" (2000) by Ray Kurzweil. This futurist book
sparked my imagination at a young age as to what was possible with technology.
Several of its predictions that have come true today.

2\. "Creativity Inc." (2014) by Ed Catmull. Fascinating stories and lessons
from the man who ran Pixar, the animated film company with 11 straight number
1's at the box office.

3\. "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. Along with talent and hard work, being
well-positioned is a big part of success. Put in 10,000 hours to be great at
anything.

------
quantum_nerd
1\. "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. Taught me
how to be more productive and simplify thinking about productivity. One of the
books I re-read every year.

2\. "The Bible" \- I am not too religious, but I am a spiritual person. I find
the new testament to be a good blueprint on how to live a righteous life.

3\. "The Pragmatic Programmer: from journeyman to master" \- such a timeless
classic. Just get it...

------
g051051
1\. Peopleware 2\. The C Programming Language 3\. Design Patterns: Elements of
Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Honorable mention: Compiler Design in C

------
andersthue
1\. Start with why, Simon Sinek - to get my younger self to figure out why I
am doing what I am doing

2\. Drive, the surprising truth..., Daniel Pink - to understand happiness and
motivation

3\. Crucial Conversations, to learn how to talk and listen and talk to people
without ruining the conversation and the possibilities from it

------
protomyth
Career not life, so:

K&R C (Draft ANSI Edition) - A small book that shows how you should write.
Many of the examples are not really good code anymore, but it traveled and
inspired.

Perl Little Black Book - I needed to learn Perl and it was packed. Much like
many of the ORA pocket references, except with a lot more examples. My copy is
in rough shape with flags, notes, and highlights.

I will have to dig it out of a box, but I had a system process and design book
from a college class that I used extensively in my first decade of work. I
think I internalized it all. I put the book in a crate with my K&R C book
waiting for a good shelf to put it on when I get somewhere a little more
permanent.

------
ericssmith
The headline and the body are posing two different questions. Regarding books
that impacted my career in software. The top three are:

1) K&R C

2) Zen of Graphics Programming

3) C++ Programming Language, 2E

I wouldn't recommend any of these to a young version of myself today.

------
homoSapiens
1\. Think and grow rich: Thought me about goal setting, opened my eyes to the
fact that a man can rise from his humble beginnings to any height he want's to
attain if he is willing to work for it.

2\. PHP for dummies: My first exposure to the world of programming, since then
I've never looked back.

3\. Rich Dad, Poor Dad: Changed my thinking about finance, I don't know how I
would have handled my finances if I hadn't come across this book as a
teenager, I feel so lucky to have read this book. I would have been stuck in
society's harmful way of handling finance.

------
rkho
I'm pretty early in my career. There's just one book on my list now (and
that's simply because I haven't made time to read others): The Clean Coder, by
Robert Martin

------
scottlilly
"The Goal" \- Started my interest in Lean principles, along with how to apply
them to programming - imagining my programs as little data "factories", that
need to be made efficient and efficiently.

"How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" \- Taught me I don't need to follow
the standard path that "everyone else does", and to focus on how I can
actively change my world - instead of waiting for someone else to to change it
for me.

"Code Complete" \- Get it. Read it. Live it.

------
deadmik3
"Cracking the Coding Interview" (probably wouldn't even have a career without
this book)

"The Little Schemer"

"Stories of Cats and the Lives They Touch" by Peggy Schaefer

~~~
vannevar
I strongly recommend The Little Schemer to any programmer.

------
gadders
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

All of your working life is built on relationships, even if you code all day.

------
de107549
There were different book that impacted different stages of my career:

As a programmer :

1\. The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup.

2\. Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz

3\. Compilers by Aho

As an agile software developer:

1\. eXtreme Programming by Kent Beck

2\. Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas

3\. Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble

As an architect:

1\. Domain Driven Design by Evans

2\. Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture by Buschmann

3\. Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte

As a CEO:

1\. Good To Great by Collins

2\. Lean Startup by Eric Ries

3\. Beyond Budgeting by Pfläging

------
kozak
1\. "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries

2\. "Insanely Simple" by Ken Segall

3\. "How to Measure Anything" by Douglas W. Hubbard

------
kercker
Carol Dweck's "Growth mindset". This book changed my view of diligence and
intelligence.

------
rffn
\- The Pragmatic Programmer (Hunt/Thomas)

\- Computer Architecture - A Quantitative Approach (Hennessy/Patterson)

\- Expert C Programming - Deep C Secrets (van der Linden)

I woud call the Pragmatic Programmer though by far the most influential.

~~~
pllbnk
Interesting that this book is mentioned in this thread several times. I didn't
find this book bringing almost any value to me. What it did was giving names
(e.g. orthogonality) that I didn't know before to the common programming
concepts that all developers with some practical experience should be aware of
anyway as a common sense. But that might just be due to a different approach
to programming.

I find the books such as Andrew Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks" which are
bringing historical perspective as well as a lot of technical information
without going into the tiny details the best balance of useful and
interesting.

Therefore "Computer Architecture - A Quantitative Approach" is much better for
me in that aspect and the C programming should be really interesting too,
although I haven't read it.

------
sunstone
1.The Trouble with Lawyers - an early introduction to conflicts of interest

2.One Up On Wall Street - insiders view of the markets and other lessons

3.Consilence - how to distinguish real things from unreal things

------
0xmohit
\- The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Lawrence J. Peter &
Raymond Hull

\- The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely

\- Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons In Life by Sir Richard Branson

------
kentf
The Pragmatic Programmer, Dave Thomas, Andy Hunt

Fooled by Randomness, Taleb

Linchpin, Seth Godin

------
hvd
1.How to fail at almost everything and still win big- Scott adams 2.The
Surrender Experiment - Michael Singer 3.Choose Yourself - Jamel Altucher

------
phyalow
1\. Beating the Street - Peter Lynch 2\. More Money than God - Sebastian
Mallaby 3\. Dark Pools - Scott Patterson

------
cmax
1) The Art of Unix Programming 2) TCP/IP Illustrated 3) 97 Things Every
Programmer Should Know

------
ohgh1ieD
1\. Ego Is the Enemy - Ryan Holiday

2\. sidebar from /r/theredpill

3\. The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a
Lifetime

Book number 3 has probably the most 'click baity' and the most douchey title
of all times. It sounds like one of those self help books or one of those get
rich fast schemas but in fact, it's an eye opener and it encourages hard work.

~~~
legodt
Is #2 a joke? I sincerely hope it is. Such a hateful ideology has no place on
Hacker News

~~~
gregn
Pretty sad this got flagged. Honestly, I would flag the Bible before it. I
think I understand your reasoning. While I don't agree with it, it's no worse
than Ayn Rand or Timothy Ferris.

~~~
brudgers
I don't think the books were the cause.

------
gyvastis
"The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter" by Meg Jay

~~~
ohgh1ieD
Is this going to make me sad if I read it by the age of 32 ?

~~~
benjohnson
Perhaps not. I'm 42 and I'm _tend_ to think of my station in life as just
being delayed by 15 years - I had to get over a rather crappy childhood and a
protracted adolescence.

(That said, I'd admonish anyone your age that if you don't have children, have
them now rather than a series of compensating house-pets for the rest of your
life)

~~~
ohgh1ieD
> (That said, I'd admonish anyone your age that if you don't have children,
> have them now rather than a series of compensating house-pets for the rest
> of your life)

I should give up my dreams in order to have kids ?

Two years ago, I had an idea ( that failed but that's not the point here ), I
wanted to finish it so I simply walked into the office and quit.

I worked 6 months on my project, I didn't care about someone else, just me and
my project.

I value your opinion and if you think that you should have kids, do it but for
me, right now it would be like a prison.

~~~
benjohnson
Note: I'm not necessarily wise.

Having children don't preclude following personal dreams - for my own
situation - children enhanced my ability(and necessity) to discern if any
potential dream was plausible, actionable, and worth the extra effort.

For example, I've given up trying to become a billionaire - my financial
security is fine, so it would be regrettable to trade away going hiking with
my family for extra money.

And as a practical matter, children are only horribly disruptive when very
small - and they're quite fascinating as a source of entertainment in
themselves.

But... here's the problem... biologically, female humans seem to be designed
to have children easily up until about their mid-thirties (apparently longer
if the specimen is fit and active.)

~~~
ohgh1ieD
I like your perspective.

Because this:

> And as a practical matter, children are only horribly disruptive when very
> small - and they're quite fascinating as a source of entertainment in
> themselves.

Is actually very insightful.

> But... here's the problem... biologically, female humans seem to be designed
> to have children easily up until about their mid-thirties (apparently longer
> if the specimen is fit and active.)

No one told us that we have to choose a female of our own age. That's
societies attempt to brainwash us. While it looks quite disgusting when people
are 20-30 years apart, 10 years is totally ok.

------
adrice727
"The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin

~~~
dasboth
I didn't realise he wrote a book. His chess videos in Chessmaster made me a
much better player, I'll definitely have a look at the book.

------
rabboRubble
1) Shogun

2) Noble House

3) Excel by Que Publishing

------
draw_down
Probably the Dale Carnegie book, as dumb as that sounds.

