5 Books I'm Reading Now
Tags: books, startup, python, productivity
Published: 2020-10-07 12:23:54

# Introduction
Books offer wisdom in a nice package. It serves to enrich our mind and perception of the world. Good books fulfil a role as an invisible consultant. Who we call upon them for entertainment, inspiration, insights & wisdom to shape our minds. I believe where I am now is the direct result of good books I had read over the years. These books served to change my reality in how I view the world to become a sponge to learn new things about the world. 

# Unscripted By Mj DeMarco
I read  Mj DeMarco's previous book called [The Millionaire Fastlane][1] and unlike your usual entrepreneurship books. He provides tons of tough love and truth bombs. The book literally busts your a** to adopt thinking patterns or perception as an entrepreneur. I like those ugly truth books that is simple, direct and hearty in how he tells his story. That is battle-tested in the trenches by these people.

# The Unicorn Project By Gene Kim
A sequel to Gene Kim's famous book called [The Phoenix Project][2]. A book that I highly recommend it for those who have an interest in DevOps to pick it up. As the Unicorn Project covers stories and context of a developer. Who works in a large IT department works with jargon and technical terms that you may be familiar as a developer. The Unicorn project to incorporate lean manufacturing concepts & DevOps methodology. To me, it is not a tool book but more of a concept/philosophy book that uses stories as lessons to drive a point across.

# Architecture Patterns with Python By Harry J.W. Percival, Bob Gregory
A followup of Harry Percival book called [Test Driven Web Development with Python][3] was one of the few books that talks about Django & TDD. 

In his new book, he goes deep and talks about various concepts & architecture patterns used in other programming languages. While providing you examples by himself and his co-author with Python with TDD. Therefore if you are a person interest in testing & Python, it will serve you well to dive deep into it.  

# The Mom Test By Rob Fitzpatrick
I heard about it from in one of the podcast episode in [IndieHacker][4] that talks on customer development, sales and conducting user interviews for your startup. 

What I found interesting besides it being a sales book. The book is written for techies by techies. So any developer or techie can use it to build their indiehacker business or startup without much knowledge in sales & customer development.
 
# Meditations By Marcus Aurelius
I had an interest in Stoicism due to the influence by [Tim Ferriss][5]. I read about the benefits as a [personal operating system][6] for yourself. This leads to me, collecting afew stoicism & philosophy books in my personal library. Meditations have been one of my favourite goto stoicism books. As it resonates with me the most on how I should view or operate in the world. If you have an interest in understanding the minds of famous people through biography or autobiography. The book is written as a self-reflection by Marcus Aurelius. Who is one of the 5 good Roman Emperor who had ruled Rome. During the reign, he had to endure constant invasion, civil war, famine, a [pandemic][7] that is much worst than covid19 in lethality.

# Conclusion
These books are part of my open book list. I do take a while for me to read and absorb each book. So I tend to have a huge backlog of books that is in my open book reading list. So if you are into entrepreneurship & business checkout [The Mom Test][8] & [Unscripted][9].

If your developer and wants to know more on Python, DevOps, testing and maintaining a legacy codebase. I would suggest you look at [The Unicorn Project][10] &  [Architecture Patterns with Python][11] to serve you to become a better developer.

If you like Stoicism or is interested to read more on Stoicism. I would suggest you read my favourite Stoicism book called [Meditations][12] as a gateway drug into the Stoicism.

Lastly, are you looking to specialise as a developer? If yes, I’m giving away my free ebook called ["Picking Your Specialisation as a Developer"][13]. It is for anyone interested in commanding a higher salary or simply doing the work they like.

This post includes affiliate links, I may receive compensation if you purchase products or services from the different links provided in this article.

# Reference
* [Read These Books Instead of Getting an MBA][14]
* [Unscripted][9]
* [The Phoenix Project][2]
* [The Unicorn Project][10]
* [Architecture Patterns with Python][11]
* [The Mom Test][8]
* [Meditations][12]
* [The Millionaire Fastlane][1]
* [Test Driven Web Development with Python][3]
* [IndieHacker][4]
* [Tim Ferriss][5]
* [How Marcus Aurelius Responded To A Pandemic | Ryan Holiday | Coronavirus and Stoicism][7]
* [How to Use Philosophy as a Personal Operating System: From Seneca to Musashi][6]


[1]: https://amzn.to/2SwAZ18
[2]: https://amzn.to/2Fbv5j2
[3]: https://amzn.to/3ljZz1s
[4]: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast
[5]: https://tim.blog/
[6]: https://tim.blog/2011/05/18/philosophy-as-a-personal-operating-system-from-seneca-to-musashi/
[7]: https://youtu.be/Em_qw-r6CMg
[8]: https://amzn.to/3ngpjOe
[9]: https://amzn.to/2SuilXu
[10]: https://amzn.to/3jtIJNm
[11]: https://amzn.to/3ix1Ep7
[12]: https://amzn.to/36uMCxE
[13]: https://maxongzb.activehosted.com/f/5
[14]: https://thehustle.co/read-these-books-instead-of-getting-mba