My Lowest Bookshelf

I think this kind of game is fun, and informative. YourMileageMayVary.

Catalog the bookshelf that is closest to your work area, the one on which your most-used books live. Skip the manuals; include only books you (or somebody) paid for. If your bookshelf is 5 shelves tall, stick to the shelf that's easiest to grab from.

I just linked to this page as part of a blog entry on twelve71.com about changing my focus. It was amazing to read my entry from over 5 years ago. I think I'll try and keep a record from now on, once ayear, of what books are there within arm's reach.... -- AlanFrancis

To be honest, I stole Coplien and Meyers from JimPerry.

-- BetsyHanesPerry

On the back of my desk there's a row of books (big desk, the two monitors serve as bookends).

-- WilliamGrosso

Come to think of it, why do I have some of these at work? The ones I refer to the most are at home.

-- MichaelFeathers

Mine are somewhat sorted by size, but on the shelf I reach for most are:

-- JimPerry

-- AlistairCockburn

That list was done perhaps in early 1999. I don't read or reference any of those books any more, as they've been internalized or forgotten. I'm reading many books now, but none stay on the lowest shelf. They're all stacked up all over the place. MyLowestBookshelf is gone (sob). July 00, Alistair

Cool idea. I have the AntiPatternsBook; The DesignPatternsSmalltalkCompanion; HTML for Dummies; XML for Dummies reference guide; UmlDistilled; PatternLanguagesOfProgramDesign 1; PLoPD2; PLopD3; the DesignPatternsBook; Java in a Nutshell; Up to Speed With Swing; XML Distilled; POSA [is this PatternOrientedSoftwareArchitectureOne or Two?]; AnalysisPatterns; DataModelPatterns; CORBA Patterns; Client/Server Programming with Java and CORBA (v2); Beyond Object Persistence; The ODMG 2.0 Standard; Just XML; Inside OLE (how'd that get there?); GradyBooch's ObjectOrientedAnalysisAndDesign; UsingSql; and finally, Unix for Dummies. This is followed by a bunch of WorldWideWebConsortium, OMG and Sun standards volumes. -- KyleBrown

-- AlanHecht

Good game. I'm fascinated by other people's bookshelves. On mine are

Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Crystal); HowBuildingsLearn (Brand); The Midi Files (Young); StructureAndInterpretationOfComputerPrograms (Abelson/Sussman/Sussman); ObjectOrientedSoftwareConstruction, 2nd Edition (Meyer); ProgrammingPearls & More PP (Bentley); Taligent Guide to Designing Programs in C++ (Taligent); C++ Gems (Lippman); AdvancedCeePlusPlusProgrammingStylesAndIdioms (Coplien); EffectiveCeePlusPlus & MoreEffectiveCeePlusPlus (Meyers); TheDesignAndEvolutionOfCpp (Stroustrup); The C++ Programming Language (ditto); Algorithms in C (Sedgewick); LeTonBeauDeMarot, MetaMagicalThemas, FluidConceptsAndCreativeAnalogies, GoedelEscherBach (all DouglasHofstadter); BringingDesignToSoftware (Winograd); PsychologyOfEverydayThings (Norman).

All my patterns books are on the next shelf...and all my Java books are at work.

-- DavidHarvey

On the desk at work, left (near) to right:

Hm... UmlDistilled should have been in there somewhere... -- DaveSmith

Months (and projects) pass. The only book now within reach is The American Heritage Dictionary. Go figure.

Many more months pass. Within easy reach (at work) are the aforementioned dictionary, and SteveMcConnell's SoftwareProjectSurvivalGuide. The missing copy of UmlDistilled was replaced by the second edition and sits on the bedside table, along with ThePerlCookbook. Most of the reference material I now use is on-line.

In no discernible order...

-- NatPryce

Except for the DesignPatternsBook and the dictionary, those are MincomLtd's books. I keep my favourite ones at home. They are:

JavaSwing - Wood, Eckstein; Java in a Nutshell; Java Security - ScottOaks

-- JohnFarrell

-- FrankCarver

-- AlanFrancis

At work (currently scaled back because I'm coming up to finish this contract) - The C++ Programming Language, 3rd Ed (BjarneStroustrup); UNIX in a Nutshell; EffectiveCeePlusPlus & MoreEffectiveCeePlusPlus (Meyers); UmlDistilled (Fowler); SoftwareProjectSurvivalGuide (SteveMcConnell) - reading this at the moment, not very impressed; and the last few months of JournalOfObjectOrientedProgramming, CppReport and C/C++UJ.

In my hotel I have ThePerlCookbook, and on the top shelf at home I have STL Tutorial and Reference Guide (Musser and Saini), DesignPatternsBook, PatternLanguagesOfProgramDesign 2, MythicalManMonth, Standard C (PjPlauger and Brodie), Java in a Nutshell (Flanagan), ProgrammingPerl (Wall et al.), ManagingProjectsWithMake, Lions Commentary on Unix, LargeScaleCppSoftwareDesign (Lakos), ThePracticeOfProgramming (Kernighan and Pike) and The C Programming Language (KernighanAndRitchie ISO edition).

-- JezHiggins

I've got a lot of books, and I often pull out one I haven't looked at for a year or two. The closest bookshelf isn't really indicative of what I read most often. But here goes.

The closest bookshelf has the complete set of OOPSLA proceedings; CodeComplete by McConnell?; StructureAndInterpretationOfComputerPrograms by Abelson, Sussman and Sussman; Holiness by Ryle; A Critical View of Inheritance and Reusability in Object-Oriented Programming by Antero Taivalsari; and Software Components with Ada by GradyBooch.

Scattered on my desk, the floor, and the top of a nearby filing cabinet are Jump Start Your Brain; Smalltalk: An Introduction to Application Development Using VisualWorks (I use it as a textbook); DiscoveringSmalltalk; and SoftwareProjectSurvivalGuide by SteveMcConnell. -- RalphJohnson

SurvivingObjectOrientedProjects (Cockburn), ObjectSolutions (Booch), OO Modeling and Design (JimRumbaugh et al.), VMT (Tkach et al.), Instant CORBA (Orfali et al.), Java Modeling in Color with UML (PeterCoad et al.), UML User Guide (GradyBooch et al.), DesignPatternsBook (GangOfFour) -- JamesAitken

TheElementsOfStyle, Calculus volumes 1 and 2 (Apostol), Introduction to Applied Mathematics (Strang), Principles of CMOS VLSI Design (Weste and Eshraghian), The Design and Analysis of VLSI Circuits (Glasser and Dobberpuhl), Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits (Gray and Meyer), Introduction to VLSI Systems (Mead and Conway), The C Programming Language (KernighanAndRitchie), Matrix Computations (Golub and Van Loan), IntroductionToAlgorithms (Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest), Combinatorial Optimization (Papadimitriou and Steiglitz), Concrete Mathematics (Graham, DonKnuth and Patashnik), The TheArtOfComputerProgramming volumes 1-3 (DonKnuth), Algorithms (Sedgewick), Table of Integrals and Other Mathematical Data (Dwight), Advanced Calculus for Engineers (Hildebrand), Elementary Classical Analysis (Marsden), Functions of Several Variables (Fleming), The Feynman Lectures on Physics (RichardFeynman, Leighton and Sands), Waves (Crawford) -- DavidLong

WayneConrad's desk at work:

PaulTevis's Bookshelf at Work (which is where I keep the good stuff)

Though the GreatBooksListPaulTevis is probably a better source of this form of information about me.

I have bookshelves but I never really use them. The NearestPileOfBooks? is more accurate. So here we go...

-- JasonYip

On my desk the moment I found this page:

-- SeanOleary

And on mine:

Used to have another 10 or so but was starting to find the stack a bit much. . . -- MattMorris

By way of introducing myself (I always find bookshelves very revealing of people (and my bookshelves are the personification of chaos):

(etc) -- SteveCallaway

Kept within arm's reach in 2002:

.. and there I was thinking I'm a FunctionalWeenie :-) -- LukeGorrie

OK, I'll play:

-- KeithMann

For the past many years, I've kept my closest work bookshelf in MRU order: I always put books back on the left (or closest) side. Then, about every six months or so, I box up the right half of the bookshelf, thereby ridding myself of the crap I don't need.

Currently, my 10 leftmost books are:

-- TimLesher

How about the books that aren't on your bookshelf, because (a) they are lying open next to your machine, and (b) they are in your backpack/briefcase (or car), so that you have them handy whether at work or home?

See also BookShelved, where this might make for an interesting McGuffin.

Books? How analog. There isn't a bookshelf within 100 yards of my work area. -- EricHodges

The lowest bookshelf here is actually the floor underneath my desk. If anyone has a lower bookshelf, describe it.

-- DavidVierra

I keep lots of books in my basement. -- EarleMartin

CategoryBooks

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