Journal
My BookStack
11 November 2007 › 7 comments
Gadzooks! It’s been nearly a month since I last wrote anything on this site. Good thing then, I was recently doubly tagged with the BookStack meme, firstly by Stephen P. Anderson and secondly by Andy Knight.
Ever the UXA, Stephen was curious about what his friends are reading, and whether they also juggle the task of reading several books at a time…
If you’re like me, you may have several books you’re reading at once. Or maybe not reading, but referencing and scanning. Either way, these are the books piled up on your desk… So, what’s in your BookStack?
So far, the meme has passed to quite a few avid readers, such as: Jared Christensen, Travis Isaacs, Chuck Mallott. You might also be interested to know that Chuck has been steadily working on a tool, aptly titled BookStack, that will allow people to share their favorite tomes of wisdom. Anyway, I digress. Here is how my own personal list currently “stacks” up.
Pictured above is my mountain of pending books. Below are titles with links to Amazon. Of particular note is Longing for Enough in a Culture of More, which was written by the pastor of our church, Paul L. Escamilla. It’s about finding satisfaction in God, rather than worldly possessions. That said, I still crave good tech books. Apress & FoED have been especially generous.
- Prototype & Scriptaculous in Action
- Beyond Bullet Points
- Introducing Silverlight 1.0
- CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development
- PHP Cookbook
- Designing Web Navigation
- AdvancED DOM Scripting
- Web Design & Marketing Solutions for Business Websites
- Accelerated DOM Scripting with Ajax
- Beginning HTML with CSS and XHTML
- Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax
- Beginning Ruby
- Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce
- Pro Drupal Development
Knowing that many people learn by doing, and rather than put anyone on the spot by passing this meme, I would encourage anyone and everyone to write about their own bookstack, and leave a link in the comments.
Discussion + Dissension
Comments closed after 2 weeks.
#1 Anna Vester
This is quite an impressive list of books. I spotted couple that I am interested in. Thanks!
#2 beth
How do you like Designing Web Navigation?
#3 Nathan Smith
@beth – So far, Designing Web Navigation is awesome. Full color, in-depth case studies, etc. I’d recommend it to any designer / IA type people.
#4 David Sutoyo
Just wondering how you manage your time to fit in reading books. I feel like I barely have enough time to even keep up with reading all the blogs…
#5 Nate Klaiber
Ok, I couldn’t resist getting involved with this. You have an excellent stack of books going, some of which I hope to be reading soon.
I have gone a head and posted my BookStack to share.
How do you like the book on CodeIgniter? Are you using that versus other PHP frameworks?
#6 Nathan Smith
@David – As of late, I’ve not managed as well as I’d like. I need to get through a lot of these books, so I can write some reviews on Godbit. I feel bad, getting review copies but not doing anything about it.
@Nate – I’ve found the CodeIgniter book to be very well done. It’s not too lengthy, deferring to the user guide where things are already covered. As far as vs. other PHP frameworks, I haven’t really dug into any others. I wish someone would publish a book on CakePHP though.
#7 Nate Klaiber
I would agree in regards to the CakePHP book. Developers are left to the API, some brief examples, and other mailing lists (which I hate) or google groups. They desperately need a published book to help people dive into the core and get developing.
I know the developers of Cake want to make sure that they can approve the books and the content therein, but there needs to be something available.
Anyway, again, nice list – and I am with you, I need to get to some more reading.