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Ask HN: My Birthday's Tomorrow, I Need Book Recommendations

4 points by Houston ↗ HN
So, tomorrow I turn 20. My mom has been hounding me for gift ideas. I never ask for anything for my birthday, but for some reason she's particularly adamant this year.

I am a voracious reader, so I figured I'd just give her a list of books I'm interested in reading, so that she can go through 'em and buy whichever ones she pleases.

That being said, I'm turning to the smart and savvy users of HN for book recommendations. Lately, I've been on a non-fiction kick. I've been particularly interested in the biographies of the founders of major tech start-ups, or the history of how they got started. Broadly, however, I'm interested in stories about tech entrepreneurs (disruptive entrepreneurs, contrarian entrepreneurs) or the tech empires they've made.

I've also decided to start learning how to code in PHP. So, any good books on PHP are also recommended.

However, your recommendations don't have to be confined to those interests. If you read a book and were particularly floored by it, put it in your list!

5 comments

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LarryA
Programming PHP - O'Rielly its not the cutting edge book (2006), but it is by PHP founders and a good ground-start to get a feel for the language and what the commands can do. I learned quite a bit more on how many of the commands work than what other books covered. You will still need a good OOP book,

for OOP I've liked PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice by Matt Zandstra

Some Classic Computing Non-Fiction (circa 80s and earlier): * Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder * Fire in the Valley - Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine * Hackers - Steve Levy * Commodore: A Company on the Edge - Brian Bagnall (get the second edition) * The Psychology of Computer Programming by Gerald M. Weinberg - for being written in 1971 (with an updated edition in 98) it is very interesting and still relevant. * Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming by Peter Seibel - interviews of many luminary programmers, how they got stated and what they have done.

allwein
Just finished reading Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine" and I highly recommend it. A little older, but still a hell of a good read and really fed the part of my mind that digs tech histories and start-up narratives.
winsbe01
For techie non-fiction stuff, I liked both of Kevin Mitnick's books, probably The Art of Intrusion more. They feature (probably slightly fictionalized) stories of creative thinkers who exploited systems, for evil or otherwise. it was very interesting to see how these creative people used their intelligence constructively (or destructively, I suppose).

on a completely non-tech book note, I'm currently reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (author of Everything Is Illuminated) and I'm absolutely loving it! it's beautifully written, filled with humor and tragedy all at once.

just my two cents