Books

Another year has passed it is time to welcome to 2020.  This will be like my other welcome the year posts (2018, 2019) that will call out items that provided value in 2019.

Newsletters

Dev Tips Weekly
Shawn Wildermuth

Podcasts

I use these podcasts to make sure I have a good pulse on the industry and can go deeper when a topic really sounds really interesting. This is also how I make sure my commute is more than dead time.

Software Related

.NET Rocks!
Complete Developer Podcast
Hanselminutes
Software Engineering Daily

Fun

Freakonomics
Radiolab

Other

RunAsRadio

Books Read in 2019

The mix of learning vs entertainment is about the same as last year which I may try and stick with next year as well.

Fun

Artemis
Atlas Shrugged
Freakonomics
God’s Debris
Ready Player One
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Return of the King
The Two Towers

Personal Development

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
48 Laws of Power
Can’t Hurt Me
The Checklist Manifesto
Drive
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
How to Fight a Hydra
How to Talk to Anyone
The Introvert’s Edge
Letting Go
Life Unlocked
Me, Inc.
The Power of Habit
Presence
Radical Acceptance
Rejection Proof
Self-Discipline: Develop Good Habit. Achieve Your Goals.
The Richest Man in Babylon
The Top 10 Rules for Success
The Undefeated Mind

Software/Career

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Beyond Legacy Code
Domain-Driven Design
Head First Design Patterns
The Imposter’s Handbook Season 2
The New One Minute Manager
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (Part 1, Part 2 is for reference)

Top Picks

Can’t Hurt Me by David Googins is by far my favorite book I read this past year. David’s story is amazing and inspiring in so many ways. David is the Seal from the book Living with a Seal which I also highly recommend.

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande was eye-opening regarding increasing complexity for professionals across all disciplines and the mistakes this can cause. Thankfully the book isn’t all doom as Atul has many examples of how something as simple as the right checklist can prevent a lot of mistakes.

Artemis by Andy Weir (of The Martian fame) was such an awesome getaway from the productive books I had been reading. This a near-future story set on the moon. The reviews are mixed, but I really enjoyed it.

Last year I did a Welcome to 2018 post due to a technical issue with my blog. This year I wanted to do the same type of post unprompted by technical issues. So to welcome 2019 let us do a little review of 2018 of the things that provided me value.

Newsletters

ASP.NET Weekly
Dev Tips Weekly
Shawn Wildermuth

Podcasts

I use these podcast to make sure I have a good pulse on the industry even and go deeper when a topic really sounds like something I want to dig into. My commute would be wasted time without these podcasts.

Software Related

.NET Rocks!
Complete Developer Podcast
Developer on Fire
Hanselminutes
Software Engineering Daily

Fun

Freakonomics
Radiolab

Other

Gary Vee
RunAsRadio

Books Read in 2018

Like last year I pulled heavily from  John Sonmez’s book reviews playlist as well as some read suggestions from last year. You will notice there are more fiction books this year. I’m playing with my learn something vs entertainment ratio to see if I can help with my stress level. Without further ado here is the list.

Blogging

From Zero to Thousands of Target Blog Subscribers in 60 Days

Personal Development

The 5 Second Rule
Algorithms to Live By
Antifragile
As a Man Thinketh
Be Obsessed Or Be Average
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
The Compound Effect
The New Kingmakers
The Power of Now
Presence
Principles
Psycho-Cybernetics
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
Slipstream Time Hacking
So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Stop Being Lazy
The Subtle Are of Not Giving a F*ck
Unshakeable
Wait, What?
Willpower Doesn’t Work
Your One Word

Business

Crushing It!
The E-Myth Revisited
Zero to One

Fun

The Fellowship of the Ring
Fight Club
The Hobbit
The Sword of Shannara Trilogy
What If?

Health

The Plant Paradox

Software/Career

Clean Architecture
Curious Moon
Modern API Design with ASP.NET Core 2
Writing High-Performance .NET Code

Top Picks

The Compound Effect is my number one pick from this year’s books. It really brings home the fact that the little thing you do can have huge effects on your life. It was also through this that I found Darren Daily which is basically free daily mentoring by Darren Hardy the book’s author. Check it out it is how I start every weekday.

Willpower Doesn’t Work did an awesome job of explaining willpower vs our environments. Our environments are where we need to make changes to truly set ourselves up for success.

Principles by Ray Dailo round out my top 3 for the year. This book is a great look into how Ray runs his life and how he ran his business. I have never seen someone as successful as Ray lay everything our as he did it this book.