Books read in 2024
2024 is over and I managed to read 6 books. The previous year I only read 3, so I guess I am recovering and hopefully soon I can go back to reading 12 or more books per year. In general, 2024 was a more stable year for me. There were some important changes in my life, but as I am getting older, I think I am also gaining more perspective on which aspects really matter and which are (or at least should be) just background noise. 2025 promises to be full of challenges, and to be honest I am not looking forward to them, but I will try to face them with a stoic mindset and also try to continue reading for my own mental health and my growth as a person.
Anyway, here’s the list for 2024:
01 - Software engineering at Google: Lessons learned from programming over time, by Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, and Hyrum Wright.
Due to the long list of co-authors, some chapters of this book are fascinating while others are unbearably dull, even for a software engineer. There are indeed some really good lessons here, particularly for managers that have problems providing feedback, onboarding new employees or maintaining a good work-life balance in their groups. However, there are some parts of this book that really feel like bragging of some development practices that are exclusively used by Google. Some of the practices discussed in this book work for Google just because of the very particular characteristics of Google itself, and they could be disastrous if any other company tried to adopt them just because “that’s how Google does it”, so be warned.
02 - Never split the difference, by Chris Voss.
Chris Voss, an ex-hostage negotiator for the FBI has written the best book about business I’ve read so far. Certainly, the patterns he noticed during hostage negotiations also apply to many more situations, including getting new clients, lowering the price of something you wish to acquire, asking for a promotion or even choosing where to have dinner with another person. Thanks to this book, I learned the importance of truly listening and paying attention to other people. Sometimes they will not tell you exactly what they want because they don’t really know it, so it is incredibly valuable to have the skill of understanding the way they want, need and think, even if it is completely different to your tastes, mindset or even your principles. Regardless of the business part of this book, it was also fascinating to understand how the FBI works in critical scenarios, where the lives of many people could be lost in a moment. They have made some tragic mistakes because they misunderstood the intentions of the kidnappers and just tried to follow the manuals that worked for them until that point. However, they have learned from those mistakes and that knowledge has been collected in this great book.
03 - Into thin air, by Jon Krakauer.
Since it was discovered as the highest point on Earth, reaching the summit of Mt. Everest has been a goal for many people, and continues to be even when so many have died trying to get to it or trying to get down from it. I expected this book to be inspirational but it was actually depressing to see how the adventure of climbing Mt. Everest has been industrialized and packaged to anybody with enough money to hire sherpas that will, quite literally, drag you to the summit even if you are unconscious. This is also the first time I’ve read a book that made me dislike the author as a person. Jon Krakauer comes as a selfish husband and teammate, who goes out of his way to ignore people in danger. He is not the only one, of course. There are people who plainly decide to walk pass other people dying, because they see them as obstacles in reaching the summit. This is not a book I really enjoyed reading, but I am still glad I did. Now I understand how difficult, reckless and dangerous achieving something like this is, but I also understand how vast amounts of wealth can make it as ridiculous as hiring somebody to do the hard work and take the risks for you. It is quite sobering and quite a good life lesson, even if it is a hard pill to swallow.
04 - Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions, by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths.
The word “Algorithm” has gained a bad reputation lately, thanks to recommendations algorithms in social media and the ridiculous algorithmic interviews for software developers. However, they are still useful if applied correctly and for the good reasons. This book explains how we can use them to take informed and even optimal decisions in our daily lives. For example, when to choose somebody from a pool of candidates that keeps getting new candidates, when to stop looking for a new house and even when to settle down and pick a partner to get married. While very useful, I wouldn’t recommend this book to anybody who has not studied algorithms at least on a basic level. It is quite dense stuff and it can become very boring, very fast.
05 - The design of everyday things, by Donald A. Norman.
This book should be required reading for any designer, specially people designing tools, appliances, or any kind of hardware or software. This is a relatively old book, first published in 1988, but the principles it champions are still very relevant. In fact, the author himself discusses how many companies design products, make mistakes, learn from them and correct them in newer version, but then forget about them and make the same mistakes in the newest versions of the same product. With the insight of almost 40 years after it was written, I can say that this still happens. Companies still design products based only on appearance and visual appeal, while completely ignoring usability and pragmatism. The worst part is, we as users and consumers are still deluded and impressed by the newest shiny thing while superior products, much more elegantly designed, are ignored. This book taught me how to identify both good and bad designs, and to always have the users and their needs in mind while designing anything.
06 - The curious barista guide to coffee, by Tristan Stephenson.
Even for somebody who rarely drinks coffee, this book was unexpectedly interesting. In such a small and beautifully designed book, the author manages to explain the fascinating history and many precise details about the many variations of coffee and the many ways in which it can be consumed.