As a recurring feature, I post a list of books that I am currently reading. I am a voracious book collector and (usually) reader as well. With a very demanding job, a wife and a young daugther, I’ve built up quite a backlog and hope to get to most of these books in the next few months. Books I am currently reading include:
Technical Books
Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
Robert Scoble, Shel Israel
Wiley
ISBN: 047174719X
Price: $24.95
Rating: 4.5 (Total Reviews: 15)
Sales Rank: 3000
Pragmatic Ajax : A Web 2.0 Primer
Justin Gehtland, Ben Galbraith, Dion Almaer
Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (February 1, 2006)
ISBN: 0976694085
Price: $23.07
Rating: This item has not yet been released
Sales Rank: 40,075
My Job Went to India : 52 Ways to Save Your Job (Pragmatic Programmers)
Chad Fowler
Pragmatic Bookshelf
ISBN: 0976694018
Price: $19.95
Rating: 4.5 (Total Reviews: 11)
Sales Rank: 18002
Rapid J2EE(TM) Development : An Adaptive Foundation for Enterprise Applications (Hewlett-Packard Professional Books (Paperback))
Alan Monnox
Prentice Hall PTR
ISBN: 0131472208
Price: $44.99
Rating: 4.5 (Total Reviews: 5)
Sales Rank: 605254
CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition (All-in-One)
Shon Harris
McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
ISBN: 0072257121
Price: $79.99
Rating: 4.0 (Total Reviews: 107)
Sales Rank: 779
Translucent Databases
Peter Wayner
Flyzone Sr Llc
ISBN: 0967584418
Price: $29.95
Rating: 4.0 (Total Reviews: 9)
Sales Rank: 111219
Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (Head First)
Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Freeman
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 059610197X
Price: $34.95
Rating: 5.0 (Total Reviews: 7)
Sales Rank: 967
Non-technical Books
Some of the non-technical books that I am currently reading (or collecting dust in my new book pile) are:
Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
William Morrow
ISBN: 006073132X
Price: $25.95
Rating: 4.0 (Total Reviews: 767)
Sales Rank: 6
State of War : The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration
James Risen
Free Press
ISBN: 0743270665
Price: $26.00
Rating: 4.0 (Total Reviews: 43)
Sales Rank: 87
Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini
Mark Leyner, Billy Goldberg
Three Rivers Press
ISBN: 1400082315
Price: $13.95
Rating: 3.5 (Total Reviews: 179)
Sales Rank: 246
Dog Days
Ana Marie Cox
Riverhead Hardcover
ISBN: 1594489017
Price: $23.95
Rating: 3.5 (Total Reviews: 20)
Sales Rank: 2581
Vinny Carpenter's blog 
Quite the list there, with a lot of overlap between whats on my list (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/rsanheim).
Chad Fowler’s book is great, lots of fantastic little things to keep your career in top shape. The irony is the IT workers who most need his advice would never read a book like that in their off hours.
I’ve skimmed thru that Rapid J2EE book at B&N before – it seemed like a nice survey of current techniques but nothing groundbreaking. Could be a good book for project leaders or people new to agile development.
A coworker got the Prag Ajax beta book, and of course I’ve seen dion and ben do the Google maps demo live. Seems like the high quality is consistent with the other Prag Prog books. I am just finishing _Ajax in Action_ and I would also recommend that.
If you like Freakonomics you would like Malcom Gladwell’s books if you haven’t read them yet (The Tipping Point and Blink).
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