$ ls ./books
Books
The books that shaped how I build, lead and think about technology. Not reviews: what each one taught me, what I actually did with it, and where it connects to the rest of the garden.
The common thread is in Books That Shaped How I Build. Every book is also a node on the graph.
Read in 2026 (11)
- Thinking in Platforms
- Platform Strategy
- Domain-Driven Platform Engineering · reading now
- Node.js Design Patterns
- Architecting the AI-Driven Node.js Backend
- The Naked Trader
- Trading for Dummies
- Trading in the Zone
- The Disciplined Trader
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
- Options as a Strategic Investment · started
Platforms & architecture
How I think about building for other builders, and now for agents.
Kaspar von Grünberg and Luca Galante · 2026 · read 2026
Thinking in Platforms
Platform engineering as the operating model for knowledge work in the AI era, with agents as platform users.
- A platform is a deliberately designed production system for recurring work, not a bundle of tools.
- AI agents are platform users now; the paved road has to work for them too.
Gregor Hohpe · 2024 · read 2026
Platform Strategy
What makes a platform genuinely useful to the teams on it, rather than just shared infrastructure.
- Treat the platform as a product: the customer is the internal team.
- Buy what's generic, build platforms for supporting domains, leave the core to product teams.
Ajay Chankramath and Eamonn Ryan · 2026 · read 2026 · reading now
Domain-Driven Platform Engineering
How to build context-aware, scalable, self-service platforms for the enterprise, using domain-driven design to decide what the platform should own.
- Platform boundaries should follow domain boundaries, not org charts or tool categories.
- Self-service only works when the platform understands the context of the teams it serves.
Mario Casciaro and Luciano Mammino · 2020 · read 2026
Node.js Design Patterns
The event loop, streams and async patterns that make Node.js backends scale, explained from first principles.
- Understand the event loop and you understand Node: never block it.
- Streams and backpressure are the honest way to move lots of data without falling over.
Soren Valdrik · 2025 · read 2026
Architecting the AI-Driven Node.js Backend
Book 1 of The AI Backend Architecture Series: building scalable Node.js infrastructure for deep-learning applications.
- AI features are a backend architecture problem as much as a model problem.
- Treat model calls like any slow, unreliable dependency: timeouts, retries, observability.
The craft of code
The books that changed what “good code” means to me.
Robert C. Martin · 2008
Clean Code
Readable code as a professional responsibility: naming, small functions and leaving code better than you found it.
- Code is read far more than it's written, so optimise for the reader.
- Leave every file a little cleaner than you found it.
Martin Fowler · 2018
Refactoring
Changing the structure of code without changing its behaviour, in small, safe, tested steps.
- Refactoring is a sequence of tiny behaviour-preserving steps, not a rewrite.
- Make the change easy, then make the easy change.
Sandi Metz · 2012
Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby
Design as the art of keeping code easy to change, through small objects, clear messages and managed dependencies.
- The purpose of design is to reduce the cost of change.
- Think in messages between objects, not in the objects themselves.
Teams, culture & users
Software is a team sport; these explain the team.
Patrick Lencioni · 2002
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
A leadership fable: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results, each built on the one before.
- Without trust, people avoid productive conflict, and without conflict there's no real commitment.
- It's where I started working out what kind of leader I wanted to be.
Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford · 2013
The Phoenix Project
A DevOps novel: flow, feedback and continuous learning, told through an IT department in crisis.
- Work in progress is the hidden killer; make work visible and limit it.
- The most heroic person on the team is often the bottleneck.
Daniel Rowles and Thomas Brown · 2017
Building Digital Culture
Digital transformation is a culture change before it's a technology change.
- Without a digital culture, transformation stalls, however good the strategy or tools.
- Start with habits and people, then tools.
Aaron Shapiro · 2011
Users Not Customers
In digital businesses, the people who use your product matter more than the people who pay for it.
- Design for the user's experience, and the business value follows.
- Developers are the users of an internal platform; a platform nobody enjoys using has failed.
Mary Thengvall · 2018
The Business Value of Developer Relations
The "avocado book": why technical communities matter and how to show the value of developer relations.
- Developer relations means building genuine relationships with a technical community, not marketing at it.
- Internal platforms need developer relations too.
Seeing data
How to show numbers honestly, from charts to live market data.
Edward R. Tufte · 1983 · read 2026
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
The classic on graphical integrity: show the data, maximise the data-ink, and never let decoration lie.
- Above all else, show the data; every drop of ink should earn its place.
- Graphical integrity is an ethical choice: distorted scales and chartjunk mislead.
Markets & mindset
Trading taught me more about psychology than about money.
Robbie Burns · 2005 · read 2026
The Naked Trader
A plain-spoken guide to trading shares for yourself, with the emphasis on rules and risk.
- Have rules before you trade, and stick to them when emotions say otherwise.
- Cut losses early; let winners run.
Lita Epstein and Grayson Roze · 2017 · read 2026
Trading for Dummies
The fundamentals: order types, analysis, risk management and the vocabulary of markets.
- Know your order types and your risk per trade before anything else.
- You build better UIs for a domain you understand.
Mark Douglas · 2000 · read 2026
Trading in the Zone
Consistency comes from thinking in probabilities and accepting risk, not from a better prediction.
- Any single trade is random; your edge only shows up over a series of trades.
- Truly accepting the risk up front is what removes fear and hesitation.
Mark Douglas · 1990 · read 2026
The Disciplined Trader
Why markets punish undisciplined minds, and how to build the mental rules that make you consistent.
- The market gives you unlimited freedom; that's exactly why you need self-imposed rules.
- Most losses come from beliefs and emotions, not from a lack of information.
Lawrence G. McMillan · 1980 · read 2026 · started
Options as a Strategic Investment
The encyclopaedic reference on options strategies, from covered writes to spreads and volatility.
- Every options strategy is a trade-off between probability and payoff.
- A reference to dip into, not a book to read cover to cover.
Stories about technology
Fiction that shaped how I feel about technology and AI.
Ernest Cline · 2011
Ready Player One and Ready Player Two
A treasure hunt through a virtual world, and a warning about living there.
- Technology is at its best when it connects people, and at its worst when it replaces real life.
- Whoever controls the platform controls the world inside it.
Douglas Adams · 1979
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (series)
Absurd, warm science fiction, home of Deep Thought, 42 and "Don't Panic".
- The answer is useless if you don't understand the question.
- Don't Panic is still the best incident-response advice I know.
Matthew A. Goodwin · 2021
Star Scrapper (series)
A scrapper finds an illegal, highly intelligent AI, and a crew forms around it.
- AI can be dangerous; there's a fine balance between its benefits and its downsides.
- Companionship matters, and so does being kind.