A good series

Sometimes when I want to understand more about the technical things I am working with I buy a textbook. As I love books an excuse to buy a book for me is a good thing particularly if I can convince myself that the purchase will aid my understand of subject matter professionally. The problem with most textbooks is that they when they are published they are already out of date.

However one publisher tries to overcome this by giving their authors a limited timespan to write a book, this publisher is O'Reilly. I like there books for a variety of reasons. This includes knowing that they are written by an assortment of people, and as I'm on a mailing list with one and regularly read the blog of another, I see these authors as accessible people. The books are also written to be as in depth about their subject area but as brief as possible, and as I like to do other things as well as work I can go through a topic quite quickly.

My recent purchases are "Linux Pocket Guide" and the "SQL CookBook". The titles clearly signify what they are about.








O'Reilly are also the publishers of the "Head First" series of books. These books are easy to understand study guides with lots of diagrams, pictures and cartoons to ensure that you get a subject matter to stick in your head. I have read the Java book (which is now out of date) and now reading the JSP and Servlet book in full.



When I buy technical books I have a habit of only reading the chapters about topics I know a little about then 9 months to a year later actually reading the book in full. (The images are from Amazon where I end up buying all my technical books.)