Books are a valuable resource for learning and growing. This page contains my personal favorites - those books, out of the many I've read, that I classify as must-reads.

To leave feedback about these recommendations, please visit my Feedback page.

For All Professionals

Getting Things Done : The Art Of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen presents a brilliant organizational system for tracking and completing the tasks you need to accomplish. Applicable to both work and at home, this book is a must read for everyone. I've personally implemented the system described in this book: see my article on Getting Things Done for details.
Core Performance Essentials by Mark Verstegen and Pete Williams is a fitness and nutrition book that addresses many components of a healthy lifestyle including regular exercise, a healthy diet, proper rest, and more. Since good health is essential for all professionals, this topic is relevant for everyone.
I am most impressed with the exercise program presented in the book. It really maximizes the benefits you obtain for the time you spend. In only 30 minute workouts, 3 times a week, the program provides a full-body workout, including muscles and functions often neglected by other programs. Even better, the program can be done at home with minimal equipment and space needed. I recommend this book to everyone, but especially to those who don't have a regular exercise program and feel they don't have the time.

Software Development

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas is aimed at making the reader a more effective and productive software developer. Containing 70 tips for programmers and many stories and analogies, this book covers all aspects of the role of a software developer. Of particular note is that this book is the origin of the DRY principle (tip #11: Don't Repeat Yourself). This book is definitely a must-read for all developers.
Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices by Robert C. Martin covers object-oriented design principles, design patterns and agile methods of development in a unified manner, showing the importance and relevance of each topic in the context of several case studies. As a bonus, one appendix contains the classic article "The Source Code is the Design." Every developer using object-oriented languages such as Java or C# should be familiar with the principles and patterns covered in this book. While a good number of the patterns are taken from the famous book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, I have not seen any other books that mention the OO design principles covered in this book.
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler is a must-read for all developers of enterprise software. Many essential enterprise concepts and patterns are covered such as object-relational mapping, ACID transactions, optimistic locking, and model view controller.

Management

Rapid Development : Taming Wild Software Schedules by Steve McConnell is full of useful information, statistics and stories regarding all aspects of software project management. The book is a little dated but I still find myself coming back to it time and time again. I've referenced the book many times in the articles I've written on this website.
Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom Demarco is a great book. While it's focus is on the dangers of working too hard, it actually makes a number of very interesting and thought-provoking points. I've written two articles inspired by this book: Working Smarter, Not Harder and Overtime Considered Harmful.

If you find this information helpful, please make a donation.