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The books are sorted in reverse chronological order.
The ones I found particularly interesting are marked with a ✨

  • Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track by Will Larson
  • Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy & Security by Daniel J. Solove
  • Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Brown
  • Mathematics for Machine Learning✨ by Marc Peter Deisenroth
    • I was hazy on the linear algebra that I had learned in MATH 2940 at Cornell, and this was a well-written refresher
  • Computer Organization & Design: RISC-V Edition: The Hardware Software Interface✨ by David A. Patterson & John L. Hennessy
    • I had read the MIPS architecture edition of this book for CS 3410 at Cornell, and was interested to see how the new RISC-V architecture compares
  • The Risk-Driven Business Model: Four Questions That Will Define Your Company by Girotra & Netessine
    • Read because I was attending a talk by Prof. Girotra, and wanted to learn about his research
  • OCaml Programming: Correct + Efficient + Beautiful✨ by Michael Clarkson
    • It’s always great to learn new tricks from a well-written book on a language (OCaml) that I’m very familiar with.
  • The Practice of Programming✨ by Brian W. Kernighan
    • It was interesting to think about which software engineering practices described in this 1999 book were still applicable, and which practices had become outdated over the years, and, more importantly, why.
  • Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist by Allen B. Downey
    • It’s always great to learn new tricks from a well-written book on a language (Python) that I’m very familiar with.
  • Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction by Narayanan, Bonneau, Felten, Miller & Goldfeder
    • The actual technical details of cryptocurrencies are more complex than I was expecting, because of the very difficult technical problems it turns out they have to solve
  • Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble
  • Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott
    • It was interesting to think about how the topics in this book pertain to technology
  • The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography✨ by Simon Singh
    • Well-written book about the history of technology. Highly recommended!
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration & Discovery at the Dawn of AI✨ by Fei-Fei Li
    • Read because I was attending a talk by Prof. Li, and wanted to learn about her research.
    • This was a great behind-the-scenes look at how the computer science research sausage gets made. Particularly enjoyed how the author shared her emotions, vulnerabilities, and triumphs
  • Beginner’s Step-by-Step Coding Course: Learn Computer Programming the Easy Way by DK
    • Read because I was looking for an introductory book on computer science to work through with my niece
  • Hidden Figures: The American Dream & the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
    • My favorite part was the finale, watching many of the main characters reinvent themselves as computer scientists as the information age dawns
  • A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI & the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains by Max Bennett
    • This was an interesting read, but I wish I was better read in cognitive science to know how much of it was rock-solid, and how much was speculation.
  • Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
    • Prof. Rovelli has a great writing style, but didn’t have as much about quantum computers as I was hoping.
  • Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming by Eric Matthes
    • Read because I was looking for an introductory book on computer science to work through with my niece
  • How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms by Higgins & Jones
    • Read because I was attending a talk by Prof. Jones, and wanted to learn about his research
  • The Idea Factory: Bell Labs & the Great Age of American Innovation✨ by Jon Gertner
    • So much fun to read about the history of technology in my home state of New Jersey. Highly recommended!
  • Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
    • The most interesting parts are when the author speculates how Musk’s personality impacts, positively and negatively, on his business success

← 2023 |