Reading list, mid 2026

Jun 21, 2026 · 4 min read

A short list of things I've read this year that stuck with me. Mostly non-fiction, a little technical.

Books

• Designing Data-Intensive ApplicationsStill the best single book on the subject. Re-read the replication chapters.
• The Pragmatic ProgrammerHolds up remarkably well.
• A Philosophy of Software DesignShort, opinionated, worth arguing with.

Long-form

I keep coming back to well-written incident post-mortems. They are the closest thing our field has to folklore, and they teach more about real systems than most textbooks.

On the shelf

Next up is a book on probability that I've been putting off for two years, and a history of the early internet. Both feel like they'll end up as posts eventually.

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