I usually read books when I'm trying to learn something new and complex, such as a new programming language. I have a few reasons for that: - The information i

I usually read books when I'm trying to learn something new and complex, such as a new programming language. I have a few reasons for that: - The information in books is complete. Tutorials on the web usually cover only a tiny fraction of everything there is to know about a specific technology. Tutorials often go deep into a specific part of the technology, or try to cover everything in a very shallow way. Books provide a thorough explanation of everything, nut just a tiny fraction. - Books (if you make the right selection, I usually type "best [some technology] book" in google and read the suggestions on stackoverflow or other programming sites) are usually written by authoritative people in the industry. Very often by the author of the programming language that you're trying to learn. Not by some amateur who has some spare time and wants to write a blog post. - It's much more pleasant to read long texts on paper than on a bright computer screen where you have to scroll all the time and cant place physical bookmarks. As for your last question (what I read and can recommend): Tech: - Design patterns : elements of reusable object-oriented software - Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Code Complete 2 - Clean Code - Pro ASP.NET MVC (if you're into MS stuff like me) - Scrum and XP from the trenches Marketing/business: - Business model generation - Purple Cow - Permission marketing - Rework (how to do these line breaks correct?) I didn't like SICP. I can handle boring books, but this one is pretty extreme.