§ 0.5 · Bibliotheca Personalis

Bookshelf

Books finished, books begun, books abandoned — annotated
“Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” — Ecclesiastes 12:12
Currently on the desk
Pragmatic · 2024
Systems Performance
Brendan Gregg
2ᴇ · 2024

Systems Performance, 2nd edition

Brendan Gregg · Pearson, 2020

A re-read, slowly. Chapter 6 (CPUs) every time I forget what perf actually measures, which is more often than I would like to admit. Gregg’s flame graphs have ruined me for any other profiling visualisation.

p. 438 / 735 started Mar. MMXXVI
MMXXVI · Year in progress
O’Reilly · 2023
Building Green Software
Hsu · Beswick · McCormick
2023
Building Green Software A. Hsu, S. Beswick, A. McCormick
★★★★ Mar 2026
Basic Books · 1999
The Design of Everyday Things
Don Norman
Rev. ed.
The Design of Everyday Things Don Norman
★★★★★ Feb 2026
MIT Press · 2019
Reinforcement Learning
Sutton & Barto
2ᴇ
Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction R. Sutton, A. Barto
★★★★★ Jan 2026 · partial
Hatchet Books · 1978
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Douglas Hofstadter
Annotated ed.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid Douglas Hofstadter
★★★★★ Jan 2026
MMXXV
Addison-Wesley · 2017
Site Reliability Engineering
Beyer, Jones, Petoff, Murphy
Google · 2017
Site Reliability EngineeringB. Beyer et al.
★★★★ Nov 2025
O’Reilly · 2019
Kubernetes Up & Running
Hightower · Burns · Beda
2ᴇ
Kubernetes Up & RunningK. Hightower, B. Burns, J. Beda
★★★★ Sep 2025
Penguin · 2011
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
FSG · 2011
Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman
★★★★ Jul 2025
Houghton Mifflin
The Soul of a New Machine
Tracy Kidder
1981
The Soul of a New MachineTracy Kidder
★★★★★ May 2025
Morgan Kaufmann
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
Martin Kleppmann
2017
Designing Data-Intensive ApplicationsMartin Kleppmann
★★★★★ Apr 2025
Gallimard · 1942
Le Mythe de Sisyphe
Albert Camus
Coll. Folio
Le Mythe de SisypheAlbert Camus
★★★★ Feb 2025
No Starch · 2021
Linux Kernel Programming
Kaiwan N. Billimoria
2021
Linux Kernel ProgrammingKaiwan N. Billimoria
★★★★★ Jan 2025 · skim
Ginkgo Press
The Pragmatic Programmer
Hunt & Thomas
20ᵗʰ anniv.
The Pragmatic Programmer (20th anniv.)Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
★★★★ Jan 2025
MMXXIV
O’Reilly · 2020
BPF Performance Tools
Brendan Gregg
2020
BPF Performance ToolsBrendan Gregg
★★★★★ Dec 2024
Harper · 1974
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
R. M. Pirsig
1974
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle MaintenanceRobert M. Pirsig
★★★★ Oct 2024
O’Reilly · 2022
Understanding the Linux Kernel
Bovet & Cesati
3ᴇ
Understanding the Linux KernelDaniel Bovet, Marco Cesati
★★★★★ Aug 2024 · partial
Seuil · 2019
Bifurquer
Bernard Stiegler
Seuil · 2019
BifurquerBernard Stiegler & collectif
★★★★★ Jun 2024
Wishlist · queued
pendingThe Phoenix Project — Kim, Behr & Spafford. Borrowed from a colleague; due any week now.
pendingCode: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software — Charles Petzold. Second edition is on order.
pendingL’Ordinateur : étude de mœurs — fictitious title placeholder while awaiting a copy of the Stiegler posthumous.
pendingDatabase Internals — Alex Petrov. On the desk, untouched, judging me.

Ratings follow the unambitious American Library Association convention: five stars if I will re-read, four if I recommend, three if I finished it, two if I did not, one if it wronged me personally. Reviews are available on request — i.e. if you send an email, you’ll get opinions.