Games people play left me with very mixed feelings. On one side the core idea of transactional psychology and Games is really interesting. I really liked the beginning of the book. On the other hand content seems a bit irrelevant at times and does not explain the subject all that well.

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Build a great team is a really nice little book. It is very easy to read and contains a lot of useful tips on how to work with a team. A nice surprise was the fact that author advocates for my favorite leadership style "servant leadership", which is based on support, understanding and help, not giving orders.

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If I had to summarize this book with a single word it would have to be "disappointing". I had quite high hopes for it as I read some of the “beautiful” book series before and they were really good. Unfortunately beautiful teams is not that great at all. I am not sure who would I recommend it to anyone.

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The art of lean software is a very short book. I was really surprised when I got it delivered home. It is not a bad book though. Even that most of the practices are common sense nowadays I still people should spare few hours to read it.

I have seen too may people not following these common sense rules to discourage anyone from reading the book. Don't expect breakthrough, just a list of useful advice.

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I have not read a book about computer algorithms for a long time now. I liked parts of the programming pearls and I disliked parts as well. I think it is worth going through the book if you are a software engineer. Especially if you want to get better at designing efficient software or if you want to practice on some non-trivial programming puzzles.

In general I think it is a a solid book.

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Any time I take a break from work to travel I buy a few different books outside of my main interests to get some food for thought. I loved The Grand Design, it is really so much fun to read :)

I loved The Grand Design as it does not contain even one math formula. It is more of a philosophical book talking about different models of reality, explaining theories and showing nice analogies. Author makes some amazing points and presents some of the most popular and interesting theories. He manages to simplify and present them in very understandable ways. I think the book can be understood by almost anyone, it is written exceptionally well!

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I never thought i would ever say it about any autobiography book, but this one is really nice to read. Richard Branson is obviously an exceptional person, before reading the book i had no idea how exceptional he really is though.

If you are looking for inspirations and some good life lessons, read the book. I think you will not be disappointed. It is a really interesting story and a good set of life advice.

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That is a really exceptional book! You would expect googler's books to be good, but this one is really great. Don't waste time, just order a copy you wont regret it.

Team Geek is a great source of knowledge not just for leaders but for all the people who work with software engineers (or who are engineers themselves).

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I have read about mongodb quite a lot on-line last year and i also managed to pick up this book. I think it is a really easy to read and well written book. If you want to get some good basics on mongodb i think it is worth checking it out.

It is structured more like a tutorial / reference manual i guess as it focuses a lot on practical examples and usage of different commands.

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Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler was not exactly as i imagined. First of all it was written in early 2000s and you can feel that it got a little bit outdated. Back in 2003 I am sure it was a really great source of patterns and best practices but from current perspective it may be a bit less relevant.

The book has some really good parts and I think every engineer would benefit from skimming through it. Way too often I see engineers with huge haps in important areas as concurrency, distributed systems, decoupling etc. I think there is still quite a lot of relevant knowledge in the book.

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The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a great book and I am happy to recommend it to all entrepreneurs, managers, business owners and software engineers.

It is very difficult to summarise a book like The Lean Startup in a blog post. It contains a lot of information and a whole new ideology for how starups should be built.

Even that i kept reading about lean startups and MVP (minimal viable product) a lot this year, I still found The Lean Starup to be a very interesting book.

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Web Operations is a really awesome book, there is no question about it. Even that the book consists of multiple short chapters it contains so much insight and experience that every software engineer should read it.

I have been quite lucky with my book readings recently. Most of the books I read were good or very good. I think it is mainly because of a more careful selection process. I stopped reading random titles and I try to read books that were recommended to me by people I know.

Web Operations is a MUST HAVE, let me explain why.

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I have read this book a few months ago so I don't remember all the details any more. Fortunately I can still remember it was a great book and it made me rethink some of my beliefs.

It is true that we make biggest changes to our lives when we manage to change our beliefs. This book managed to help me change some of my beliefs and it helped me a lot. I would recommend it no matter how together you are, it does have some great concepts.

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First of all i would be lying if i said that i did not like RabbitMQ :) It is a pretty cool piece of software. Having said that, i could be a bit biased in favor of the technology but i will try my best to be objective here.

RabbitMQ in Action is a really nice book. I think Alvaro Videla and Jason Williams did very good job at describing how to use and leverage RabbitMQ in your web applications.

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I have just came back from a one-month journey over China and I have brought a special tome of knowledge. To avoid being one-dimensional I try to read psychology and self-development books from time to time. Exploring new concepts and new ideas can be a very enriching and satisfying activity.

Getting to know Confucius may not be the easiest of all the books or most exciting one, but it is filled with reflections and wisdom that is very valuable.

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