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This is the second book I have read that goes into depth about time-oriented databases. In particular it gives enough detail for someone to create and maintain both transaction time and valid time tables. One thing it has above other literature is that it also describes a development methodology for deriving temporal databases in a domain that would greatly aid the beginning practitioners.

A practical book focused on testing Java applications. Surprisingly this book presents a balanced and reasoned description of several techniques, vary rarely making unsupported emotive arguments or seeing every problem as a nail to be hammered using the one true hammer (This is not usually found in books about testing). While this book is principally about TestNG, may of the same ideas could be applied to JUnit 4 with a small amount of work. However after reading this I am hopping to move some of our larger projects across to TestNG in short order.

The premise of this book is that successful teams are not necessarily characterized by the skills of the participants but by the "positive relationships" - among team members, between individual members and the team, and between the team and external groups. The book suggests that teams may be able to improve by adopting practices or habits that reinforce positive relationships and strengthen the team. While most of the organizational psychology of this book is hidden away behind the practical tips, the authors academic bent pokes through in a few places. The book also seems to focus on non-technical teams but most of the advice is still relevant.

An amazing book that I have been reading on and off since it was released. It is packed with information about the practice of continuous delivery and how to introduce it into your organisation. While most of the information could be found in other locations, this book brings it together and more importantly it integrates it and backs it with both anecdotal stories, statistics and relates it to practices in other industries. It is perfectly designed to arm you to describe the benefits to higher ups in the food chain. The chapter regarding the automated provisioning of environment was new to me and it may become dated over time but hopefully the book will be revised in the future. The only negative in the book is the push towards using strategies such as mocking/test-doubles that seem to be based on the authors backgrounds rather than an actual need to implement continuous delivery. Other than that - pure excellence.

The book explains basic economic theory using everyday examples. For someone who has never been interested in economics, the book makes it easy and even fun to read about. The book while written to be read by a amateur, goes into enough depth that it offers something to those already versed in the theory.

David Hay is a big name in the data modelling industry. This book is interesting in that it seems to aimed at Enterprise Architects who want to do high level meta-data modelling. It describes a meta-model broken down according to the Zachman's "Framework for Enterprise Architecture". The meta-model is just one particular implementation of his concepts and may need to be modified for your particular context if his assumptions prove to be inaccurate. However, as he expounds on his reasoning it should be possible to adapt his work to your own context.

A spectacular fiction that educates the reader on what the author believes Enterprise Architecture should be rather than what it tends to be. The book makes the argument that the EA practitioner should be supporting the CEO rather than a part of an IT group.

In university I spent two semesters studying myth and it's connection to history; where myths came from, how they evolved and the historical evidence to support events in various myths. This book is the transcription of a series of interviews with Joseph Campbell that that takes a very different bent. This compares and contrasts the mythological beliefs of ancient and modern religions and highlights similar themes that appear throughout each tradition. In some cases it traces the development of a theme through a tradition such as how elements change in each successive evolution of the Abrahamic religions.

A book describing how successful companies can lose the leadership position when "disruptive technology" emerges. For someone who doesn't read many business oriented books this was simple to understand and surprisingly interesting. It may not have been as revolutionary to me as to everyone else and seemed like it was mostly common sense. However, this may be because I was never taught anything contrary to the central tenant of this book.

Once upon a time I was a Neuroscience / Psychobiology student and read this book back then. Re-reading the book just reminds me how wonderful the human brain is and how good it is at repairing itself and how sometimes it gets it wrong with some surprising consequences.