100 Best Engineering Books of All Time

Marius Ciuchete Pauneval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'theceolibrary_com-large-mobile-banner-2','ezslot_5',164,'0','1'])); Question: Was there a moment, specifically, when something you read in a book helped you? Answer: Yes there was. In fact, I can remember two separate sentences from two different books: The first one comes from “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman. It says: “great design will help... (Source)

Grey BakerI mainly read to decompress and change my state of mind, so it’s hard to point to an insight I read that helped me. Reading fiction has pulled me out of a bad mood more times than I can count, though, and always reenergises me to attack problems that had stumped me again. That said, I read and loved Norman Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things”, and it’s helped me think through design problems... (Source)

Kaci LambeThese three books are about how people actually use design in their lives. They helped me understand this very basic idea: There are no dumb users, only bad designers. Take the time to create based on how your design will be interacted with. Test it. Iterate. That's how you become a good designer. (Source)

Elon MuskIt is really, really good if you want a primer on structural design. (Source)

Steven Sinofsky@sriramk 2/2 My experience is the hardest thing for a new manager is dealing with failure (they made it to manager by not failing). How to separate personal failure from direct report from systems. That’s why I love this book: https://t.co/75I6WpHAId (Source)

Richard BransonElon Musk is a man after my own heart: a risk taker undaunted by setbacks and ever driven to ensure a bright future for humanity. Ashlee Vance's stellar biography captures Musk's remarkable life story and irrepressible spirit. (Source)

Casey NeistatI'm fascinated by Elon Musk, I own a Tesla, I read Ashlee Vance's biography on Elon Musk. I think he's a very interesting charachter. (Source)

Roxana BitoleanuA business book I would definitely choose the biography of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance, because of Elon's strong, even extreme ambition to radically change the world, which I find very inspiring. (Source)

Yuval Noah HarariThe most prophetic book of the 20th century. Today many people would easily mistake it for a utopia. (Source)

Ellen Wayland-SmithIt is a hilarious, and also very prescient, parody of utopias. Huxley goes back to the idea that coming together and forming a community of common interests is a great idea – it’s the basis of civil society. At the same time, when communities of common interests are taken to utopian degrees the self starts to dissolve into the larger community, you lose privacy and interiority; that becomes... (Source)

John QuigginThe lesson I draw from this is that the purpose of utopia is not so much as an achieved state, as to give people the freedom to pursue their own projects. That freedom requires that people are free of the fear of unemployment, or of financial disaster through poor healthcare. They should be free to have access to the kind of resources they need for their education and we should maintain and... (Source)

Chris Anderson@elidourado @pmarcas_likes What broke was our risk tolerance. The "Skunkworks" book is a great insider story of that. The day that the financial auditors outnumbered the engineers was the day the innovation died: https://t.co/ncrsulEZyC (Source)

Chris Anderson@elidourado @pmarcas_likes What broke was our risk tolerance. The "Skunkworks" book is a great insider story of that. The day that the financial auditors outnumbered the engineers was the day the innovation died: https://t.co/ncrsulEZyC (Source)

Chris Anderson@elidourado @pmarcas_likes What broke was our risk tolerance. The "Skunkworks" book is a great insider story of that. The day that the financial auditors outnumbered the engineers was the day the innovation died: https://t.co/ncrsulEZyC (Source)

Jeff Bezos[From "The Everything Store", written by Brad Stone] “An influential computer scientist makes the counterintuitive argument that small groups of engineers are more effective than larger ones at handling complex software projects. The book lays out the theory behind Amazon’s two pizza teams,” Stone writes. (Source)

Alan KayAn early look and experience with timeless truths (and gotchas) from systems building with teams (Source)

Hadley WickhamThis book is about the craft of software development, and thinking about how to produce good code. (Source)

Ana BellThis book is going to show you how to write code that is readable by yourself in the future, or by somebody else. You can sit on the couch and read it; you don’t need to code. You can actually enjoy it if you don’t know how to program at all. (Source)

Michael LoppA fascinating read about when bridges were still in beta. (Source)

Brent GlassEven though you know what the ending is, he creates a dramatic sense of just what it took to bring this bridge into being and to complete it. (Source)

Santiago BasultoIf my career path is hackers turned business people, I’d say: Start with the basics and fundamentals: SICP: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Code Complete 2 (Source)

Ana BellCode Complete is for people working in industry, writing software for companies. It has little checklists at key points in the book; if you are in industry, you can make sure that your code is readable and debugged by going through these checklists and making sure you’re touching upon all aspects. (Source)

Mark ZuckerbergOh, it’s not a favorite book or anything like that, I just added it because I liked it. I don’t think there’s any real significance to the fact that it’s listed there and other books aren’t. (Source)

Timothy FerrissAt one point, this was the only book listed on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page. If it’s good enough to be the sole selection of the founder of Facebook, maybe there’s something to it. The plot: In anticipation of another attack from a hostile alien race, the search for a brilliant military strategist has led to Ender Wiggin. In space combat school, Ender stands out, demonstrating exceptional... (Source)

Travis KalanickAbout a kid who is trained by the military to play video games [...] But he realizes at the end that the video games he was playing were an actual war. (Source)

Bill GatesA bunch of my friends recommended this one to me. Carreyrou gives you the definitive insider’s look at the rise and fall of Theranos. The story is even crazier than I expected, and I found myself unable to put it down once I started. This book has everything: elaborate scams, corporate intrigue, magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships, and the demise of a company once valued at nearly... (Source)

Brad FeldEvery entrepreneur and VC should read this book. John Carreyrou has done something important here. Maybe this book will finally put a nail in the phrase “fake it till you make it”, but I doubt it. The amount of lying, disingenuousness, blatant and unjustified self-promotion, and downright deceit that exists in entrepreneurship right now is at a local maximum. This always happens when... (Source)

Andrew ChenFinished “bad blood” on the Theranos scandal. Wow. Just wow. It’s a must read for everyone in tech and startups. Just 1-click buy it :) Amazing how far charisma and social proof got them. Here’s the NYT review of the book https://t.co/PyMGxfoG2R (Source)

Barry EstabrookMichael Pollan looks at food production through four meals. One is a fast-food meal, the other is an industrial-scale organic meal, then there is a small-scale organic meal and finally he actually goes out and either grows or kills, in the case of the meat, the entire meal himself. That is the narrative. (Source)

Gabriel CoarnaMichael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" --more precisely, the first 3rd of it-- was what first made me realize how badly the Earth, as an ecosystem, is out of balance. (Source)

Tristram StuartHe concludes that there is food out there that tastes good, is good for us and is good for the planet. (Source)

Sheryl SandbergProvides a great inside look at how the tech industry approaches building products and businesses. (Source)

Ben HorowitzGreat. (Source)

Dustin MoskovitzAt Asana, we've been lucky to benefit from [the author]'s advice firsthand; this book will enable him to help many more entrepreneurs answer the tough questions about their business. (Source)

Craig BarrettThis book didn’t really change my mind, but rather reinforced the concept of the power of the individual. At a time when we depend more and more on big institutions to solve our business and social problems the real solutions are crafted by individual actions and initiative. This is true in the business world, where ideas from individual researchers or entrepreneurs can create mega companies... (Source)

Dan Christensen@EconTalker @cable_co1 The Martian... hey it can’t all be economics and it’s a great book (Source)

Patrick Chovanec@acgleva The book was great. (Source)

Tobi Lütke[Tobi Lütke recommended this book on the podcast "The Knowledge Project".] (Source)

Kate RaworthIt was a real revelation for me to discover such a different approach to thinking and analysing challenges. (Source)

Mira KirshenbaumA nice overview of how initial conditions lead to patterns that determine what the relationship feels like to the people in it (Source)

Jeff BezosEncourages companies to identify the biggest constraints in their operations and then structure their organizations to get the most out of those constraints. (Source)

Kevin SystromAbout basically manufacturing and supply chain management. It sounds really boring, but I promise you it’s really good. (Source)

Chris GowardHere are some of the books that have been very impactful for me, or taught me a new way of thinking: [...] The Goal. (Source)

Elon MuskQuite interesting. (Source)

Bill Gates[On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012.] (Source)

Gary VaynerchukI've read 3 business books in my life. If you call [this book] a business book. (Source)

David Heinemeier HanssonThis is next on my list of technical books to read! Refactoring is one of two programming books that I’ve read multiple times (the other is Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns), and I’m due for another reading. What perfect time then to dive into Martin Fowler’s long anticipated 2nd edition, now using JavaScript rather than Java for the code examples. Like the stoic books, I read Refactoring and... (Source)

Elon MuskThere is a good book on rocket stuff called Ignition! [An informal history of liquid rocket propellants] by John Clark, that’s a really fun one. (Source)

Reid HoffmanReid read Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu as a boy, which informed his strategic thinking. (Source)

Neil deGrasse TysonWhich books should be read by every single intelligent person on planet? [...] The Art of War (Sun Tsu) [to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art]. If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world. (Source)

Evan SpiegelAfter meeting Mark Zuckerberg, [Evan Spiegel] immediately bought every [Snapchat] employee a copy of 'The Art Of War'. (Source)

Bill GatesMark Miodownik’s personal and professional obsession, as he explains in his book Stuff Matters, is basic materials we often take for granted such as paper, glass, concrete, and steel -- as well as new super-materials that will change our world in the decades ahead. I’m pleased to report that he is a witty, smart writer who has a great talent for imparting his love of this subject. As a result,... (Source)

Mark ZuckerbergMy next book for A Year of Books is The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. I'm very interested in what causes innovation -- what kinds of people, questions and environments. This book explores that question by looking at Bell Labs, which was one of the most innovative labs in history. As an aside, I loved The Three-Body Problem and highly recommend it. If you're... (Source)

Deborah BlumI picked this book because, as I talk about science as part of the everyday world, it is so good to find writers who really make an effort to reach out to a wider community. I really admire Mary Roach’s ability to take science and make it both fascinating and accessible to people who wouldn’t normally love science. She does a great job of keeping science incredibly accurate and yet making it very... (Source)

Bill GatesIf someone wants an overall view of how energy gets used, where it comes from, and the challenges in switching to new sources, this is the book to read. (Source)

Chris GoodallWhat the late David MacKay did was give us a rigorous understanding of the way that we use and generate energy. (Source)

Richard Betts@mark_lynas @nmrqip @ClimateAudit @Revkin @BillGates @UCSUSA @theCCCuk @rahmstorf Interesting that you think that. Maybe like Steve you encounter a vocal subset. I know many who are not anti-nuclear, especially since (a) Lovelock started talking about it (including at a Gaia meeting in Dartington in the mid-2000s) & (b) David Mackay published his famous book. (Source)

Bill GatesThing Explainer is filled with cool basic knowledge about how the world works. If one of Munroe’s drawings inspires you to go learn more about a subject—including a few extra terms—then he will have done his job. He has written a wonderful guide for curious minds. (Source)

Kate Lee (St Paul's Girls' School)It’s about how to explain things using the simplest terms you possibly can, using only the top 1,000 words in the English language. It’s just ingenious. So many people will try and sound clever by using lots of fancy words, but this is exact opposite. It is being clever by using the most straightforward language you possibly can, without sacrificing accuracy. It’s beautifully drawn and... (Source)

Max LevchinEasier to read [than "The Art of Computer Programming"] end-to-end quickly. (Source)

Hadley WickhamThe most valuable thing this book gives you is confidence and knowledge to go and create your own programming language. (Source)

John Maeda@jesseddy The best book in classical and “hands-on example” terms is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs — but it requires maybe a year to get thru and for me, 10 years more to marinate over. *A* book is the one I am finishing now to come out Nov 2019. https://t.co/OODjQXgf1I (Source)

Stephen BakerA marvelously detailed book, and I found it very inspiring. An interesting way of looking at how computing has utterly changed in the last 30 years. (Source)

Scott JohnsonTracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine. This was the first book that really took a deep dive into the process of creating a high tech product from scratch. Tracy really humanized the engineering process and made me realize that was the type of industry where I wanted to be. (Source)

Brad FeldI think every entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur should read the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was written in the 1970s by a guy named Robert Pirsig. It was his first book, it's kind of a hippie philosophy treatised journey. The word that sort of came out of it was Chautauqua, he's like having a conversation with his son as they do a motorcycle trip across the country, and... (Source)

Drew Houston[There are] engineers who [dismiss] all these things that can’t be fit into an algorithm, or that don’t have some kind of mathematical rigor underpinning them, [this book] is about that question. (Source)

Tyler CowenHonorable mentions: Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and The Joy of Sex, all given to me by my mother. I believe they helped inculcate some of the 1960s-70s ethos of individual freedom into my thinking. (Source)

Doug McMillon[I read and give this book because] you need to understand what you’re up against. (Source)

Santiago BasultoI love to read biographies and stories of companies. Hatching Twitter is a really good book, and if you’re into that sort of books, bios of Steve Jobs (by Isaacson) or Jeff Bezos are great too. (Source)

Tracy DiNunzioIt's a great book and especially for people starting out. (Source)

Bill GatesFascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history. (Source)

Daniel EkA brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning book about how the modern world was formed, analyzing how societies developed differently on different continents. (Source)

Yuval Noah HarariA book of big questions, and big answers. The book turned me from a historian of medieval warfare into a student of humankind. (Source)

Jeffrey SnoverGreat thread. I know of a number of devops people that haven't read this book. Ya'll should fix that. https://t.co/Yri4JJ0jBZ (Source)

Louis NyffeneggerI don't think I have a specific book that I can call my favourite. Some books have had a big impact on my view of how to build a product/company ("Rework"), some were very enjoyable to read ("The Phoenix Project"), some helped me improve the way I think ("The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out") and some the way I live ("Essentialism") or work ("Deep Work"). (Source)

Matthew TaylorOryx and Crake is here because it’s about the logical conclusion of a whole set of processes that we could have called progress. In my lecture I talked about the logic of progress: the logic of science and technology, the logic of markets, the logic of bureaucracy. And if you want a wonderful dystopian vision of what happens if you take these forward without any recourse to ethical considerations... (Source)

Tim @RealscientistsThe theme of hopelessness was the most profound I thought, as the narrative rattles through the devastatingly self-conscious decay of the main character's mind, the echoes of his life writhing and senescing inside his withering brain. Please read this great book :) https://t.co/1XVpw92bbb (Source)

Michael DellKaku interviews some of the world's best and brightest scientists to find out what they're working on. What he unveils is a future of sci-fi-like innovations and breakthroughs worth sticking around for. (Source)

Mark O'ConnellI wouldn’t be the first to look at him this way but I read Kurzweil’s work as essentially a work of religious mysticism. I think there’s no other way to read it, really. (Source)

Antonio EramThis book was recommended by Antonio when asked for titles he would recommend to young people interested in his career path. (Source)

Steve AokiIt opened me up to the idea of science fiction becoming science fact. (Source)

Bill GatesA recapitulation of the history of materials told in an interesting and approachable way. (Source)

Bill GatesThe subtitle of the book is “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” and that’s exactly what it is. People write Munroe with questions that range over all fields of science: physics, chemistry, biology. Questions like, “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?” (The answer, it turns out, is “high enough that it would... (Source)

Rhett AllainAlso, this was covered in the @xkcdComic book What If (great book). https://t.co/WmFgsxpszL (Source)

Fabrice GrindaI have lots of books to recommend, but they are not related to my career path. The only one that is remotely related is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One. That said here are books I would recommend. (Source)

Chris FussellThe history of how great ideas evolve. (Source)

Brian BurkhartThis book is essentially a biography of all the people who’ve led to the technology of today—it’s fascinating. The most important point of the book is everything is one long, connected chain. There isn’t just one person or one industry that makes anything happen—it all goes way back. For example, the communication theory I have espoused and taught throughout my career is from Aristotle, Socrates,... (Source)

Sean Gardner@semayuce @MicrosoftUK @HelenSharmanUK @astro_timpeake @WalterIsaacson Yes, I agree: "The Innovators" is a great book. I loved it too. (Source)

Ana BellIt gets you to use your imagination to virtually build a computer. It’s easy to read, you can lie down on the couch and enjoy it—it’s not so much of a textbook. It demystifies the magic of a computer and what it is. (Source)

Maggie KoerthbakerSo I'm reading "Midnight in Chernobyl" because obviously TV viewing needs to come with a syllabus afterwards. https://t.co/bWCLHTy7fq It is very interesting contrasting the fictionalized show, the history book, and the essays meant to debunk aspects of the show. (Source)

Richard BransonToday is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Joe Person@SBJLizMullen @LATimesfarmer Great book, but male-driven narrative. As was “A Man in Full” lol. “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” has a bunch of interesting, weird characters. And yes, thanks Sam. (Source)

Anop AnthonyThe Right Stuff is a marvelously readable book about test pilots and astronauts. (Source)

Mark Zuckerberg[Andy’s] book played a big role in shaping my management style. (Source)

Ben HorowitzAndy Grove, who built himself from nothing to run Intel, stopped what he was doing to teach us his magic. And not through some ghostwriter either — Andy wrote this book himself. What an incredible gift. (Source)

Drew HoustonThe best book on management ever written. (Source)

Dominic D'agostinoGene Kranz has always been a huge inspiration. Just finished his book "Failure is not an option". The level of detail he goes into describing mission control is fantastic. https://t.co/ii5UpJBKty https://t.co/wPc9anl07C (Source)

Bill GatesI picked this one up after seeing it on a Wall Street Journal list of good books for investors. It was first published in 1954, but it doesn’t feel dated (aside from a few anachronistic examples—it has been a long time since bread cost 5 cents a loaf in the United States). In fact, I’d say it’s more relevant than ever. One chapter shows you how visuals can be used to exaggerate trends and give... (Source)

Tobi LütkeWe all live in Malcolm’s world because the shipping container has been hugely influential in history. (Source)

Jason ZweigThis is a terrific introduction to critical thinking about statistics, for people who haven’t taken a class in statistics. (Source)

Ed ZschauA fabulous book. (Source)

Bill Gates[On Bill Gates's reading list in 2013.] (Source)

Holger AriansHistorian David McCullough wrote one of the most factually accurate and detailed books about the construction of the Panama Canal. Why would such a book interest a leader? Because it shows how a great thing was achieved, and what it took to take the project from the paper and make it a reality. Great things are never simple and easy to achieve. It takes creativity. Mistakes happen and losses are... (Source)

Bill GatesYou don't have to take a course [to learn physics]. If you're hardcore, read the Feynman book and do the problems. (Source)

David BainbridgeI think that he is one of the most intelligent people to live in the 20th century. Yet at the same time, surprisingly, he is an amazingly good teacher. This is quite an unusual combination. (Source)

Bill EarnerMy favorite book is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. It's a book that covers a vast range of topics over a fifty year period. It talks about the scientific advances that led to the bomb, the personalities that made those advances, and at the same time covers the political choices and escalation of violence over the course of the first half of the 20th Century that paint the use of... (Source)

Tom ClarkeThis is the best history of the greatest minds in science alive at the time, or maybe ever, and how they were brought together to build this bomb. (Source)

Marvin LiaoMy list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make... (Source)

Kelly StarrettKelly is a legitimate fantasy and sci-fi nerd. He knows Dune by Frank Herbert and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson inside and out. Kelly has daughters and texted me about the latter book, which follows a young female protagonist: "How do you raise girls that are of the system but crush the system while rebuilding a better one?" (Source)

Hope King@JerryCremin @amazon @JeffBezos It’s the best book (Source)

Stephen Kinsella@gavreilly @SLSingh Love that book (Source)