Books

I've been asked for textbook recommendations from time to time, which I've been sharing on this page. I'll keep this list up to date as I finish reading more books that I'd recommend. Note that this is not a list of all the books I own, but rather, only those I'd recommend. I've worked in programming, system administration, computer security, and for a while I've now focused on computer performance. My bookshelf reflects my career.

In 2014 I was interviewed by BookFlocks about books: here's my interview.

Systems Performance

• Systems Performance 2nd edition - Brendan Gregg (Addison-Wesley, 2021)
• BPF Performance Tools - Brendan Gregg (Addison-Wesley, 2019)
• DTrace - Brendan Gregg, Jim Mauro (Prentice Hall, 2011)
• Solaris Performance and Tools - Richard McDougall, Jim Mauro, Brendan Gregg (Prentice Hall, 2006)
• System Performance Tuning, 2nd Ed. - Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci, Mike Loukides (O'Reilly, 2002)
• Sun Performance and Tuning 2nd Ed. - Adrian Cockcroft, Richard Pettit (Prentice Hall, 1998)
• System Performance Tuning, 1st Ed. - Mike Loukides (O'Reilly, 1990)

Language Performance

• Java Performance: The Definitive Guide - Scott Oaks (O'Reilly, 2014)
• Java Performance - Charlie Hunt, Binu John (Addison-Wesley, 2011)

Database Performance

• High Performance MySQL, 3rd Ed. - Baron Schwartz, Peter Zaitsev, Vadim Tkachenko (O'Reilly, 2012)
• High Performance MySQL, 2nd Ed. - Baron Schwartz, Peter Zaitsev, Vadim Tkachenko, ... (O'Reilly, 2008)
• Optimizing Oracle Performance - Cary Millsap, Jeff Holt (O'Reilly, 2003)
• Configuring & Tuning Databases on the Solaris Platform - Allan N. Packer (Prentice Hall, 2001)

Capacity Planning

• The Art of Capacity Planning - John Allspaw (O'Reilly, 2008)
• Scalable Internet Architectures - Theo Schlossnagle (Sams Publishing, 2006)
• Configuration and Capacity Planning for Solaris Servers - Brian L. Wong (Prentice Hall, 1997)

Performance Modeling

• The Practical Performance Analyst - Neil Gunther (McGraw Hill, 1997)
• The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis - Raj Jain (Wiley, 1991)

OS Internals

• Windows Internals, Part 1 - Pavel Yosifovich, Mark Russinovich, David Solomon, Alex Ionescu (Microsoft Press, 2017)
• The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System 2nd Ed - Marshall Kirk McKusick, George V. Neville-Neil, Robert N.M. Watson (Addison-Wesley, 2014)
• Linux Kernel Development, 3rd Ed. - Robert Love (Addison-Wesley, 2010)
• Operating Systems In Depth - Thomas W. Doeppner (Wiley, 2010)
• Solaris Internals 2nd Ed. - Richard McDougall, Jim Mauro (Prentice Hall, 2006)
• Mac OS X Internals - Amit Singh (Addison-Wesley, 2006)
• Understanding the Linux Kernel, 3rd Ed. - Daniel P. Bovet, Marco Cesati Ph.D. (O'Reilly, 2005)
• Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Ed. - Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, Greg Kroah-Hartman (O'Reilly, 2005)
• The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System - Marshall Kirk McKusick, George V. Neville-Neil (Addison-Wesley, 2004)
• Solaris Internals 1st Ed. - Richard McDougall, Jim Mauro (Prentice Hall, 2000)
• Unix Internals - Uresh Vahalia (Prentice Hall, 1995)
• The Magic Garden Explained - Berny Goodheart, James Cox (Prentice Hall, 1995)
• The Design of the Unix Operating System - Maurice J. Bach (Prentice Hall, 1986)
• Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition - John Lions (Annabooks, 1977)

Unix Administration

• Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook - Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, ... (Prentice Hall, 2010)
• Unix in a Nutshell - Arnold Robbins (O'Reilly, 2005)
• Think Unix - Jon Lasser (Que, 2000)
• Unix Hints & Hacks - Kirk Waingrow (Que, 1999)

Computer Security

• Hacking Exposed - McClure, Scambray, Kurtz (McGraw-Hill Osborne, 2009)
• The Cuckoo's Egg - Cliff Stoll (Gallery, 2005)
• Secrets and Lies - Bruce Schneier (Wiley, 2004)
• The Tao of Network Security Monitoring - Richard Bejtlich (Addison-Wesley, 2004)
• The Art of Deception - Kevin Mitnick (Wiley, 2003)
• Tangled Web - Richard Power (Que, 2000)
• Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (fiction, Avon, 2002)
• Applied Cryptography - Bruce Schneier (Wiley, 1996)

Programming

• The Art of Unix Programming - Eric S. Raymond (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
• The Practice of Programming - Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike (Addison-Wesley, 1999)
• The Unix Programming Environment - Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike (Prentice Hall, 1984)
• The Mythical Man-Month - Frederick P. Brooks (Addison-Wesley, 1995/1975)

C Programming

• Expert C Programming - Peter van der Linden (Prentice Hall, 1994)
• The C Programming Language 2nd Ed. - Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie (Prentice Hall, 1988)

Perl Programming

• Anything by Randal Schwartz

Shell Scripting

• The AWK Programming Language - Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, Peter J. Weinberger (Addison Wesley, 1988)

IT History

• UNIX: A History and a Memoir - Brian W Kernighan (independent, 2019)
• Just For Fun - Linus Torvalds (Harper, 2002)
• Dealers of Lightning - Michael A. Hiltzik (Harper, 2000)
• In the Beginning was the Command Line - Neal Stephenson (William Morrow, 1999)
• Nerds 2.0.1 A Brief History of the Internet - Stephen Segaller (TV Books, 1999)
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late - Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon (Simon & Schuster, 1998)
• Accidental Empires - Robert X. Cringely (Harper, 1996)
• Life With Unix - Don Libes, Sandy Ressler (Prentice Hall, 1989)

IT Other

• Retrospectives Antipatterns - Aino Vonge Corry (Addison-Wesley, 2020)

Misc Favourites

• Skunk Works - Ben R. Rich & Leo Janos (Black Bay Books, 1996)
• The Worst Journey in the World - Apsley Cherry-Garrard (Penguin, 2006/1922)

Management

• The Dilbert Principle - Scott Adams (Harper, 1997)
• The No Asshole Rule - Robert I. Sutton (Business Plus, 2010)
• Snakes in Suits - Paul Babiak, Robert D. Hare (Harper Business, 2007)