Books I recommend to everyone
My friend Evan asked about design books and I spouted off a few – including The Systems Bible, which I now feel guilty about, because it’s not strictly a design book.
I included it because it talks about how system design fails, and it’s humorous and I think teaches some larger truths. It was originally published as “the general theory of systemantics” — a portmanteau of system and semantics — but also a pun, since the first law is that “a system displays antics”.
Here are some more book recommendations, broadly disorganized.
In politics and philosophy:
Karl Popper, The open society and its enemies (2 volumes)
The Road to Serfdom, FA Hayek
In general systems design, work, and sociology:
The Systems Bible
The Peter Principle
In small business
Growing a Business
Under The Radar
In schooling
How Children Fail
How Children Learn
Instead of Education
Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich
In government
unchecked and unbalanced
In drama and human behavior
Impro by Keith Jonstone
In parenting
Playful Parenting
Raising your Spirited Child
In homeschooling
Teach Your Own
The Well-Trained Mind
In literary analysis (and a little sociology)
The Outsider by Colin Wilson
In design
A Pattern Language
The Non-Designers Design Book
The Design of Everyday Things
In self-improvement
Getting Things Done
The Procrastination Puzzle by Tim Pychyl
Good Mood by Julian Simon – an unusual approach to CBT
How To Win Friends etc. – Dale Carnegie, still the classic
the happiness hypothesis – Jon Haidt
In Military History
A History of Warfare
The a face of Battle
Carnage and Culture
The rise and fall of the Third Reich
in General history
The Story Of The World – 4 volumes ; aimed at children aged 7-11
In Cognitive Psych
Metaphors We Live By
applied psych/relationships
The five Love Languages
Men are From Mars – included because a dear friend recommended it to me after his divorce and said “if only I had read this before, I might have been able to save my marriage”
the Good Marriage
Divorce & new Beginnings