2020 H1 Reading List

History & Politics

This year I’ve continued to find obscure WWII military history books but after watching Far from Men but I also got interested and the Algerian insurgency and independence movement and I hope to finish up the two books by November, because who knows how 2020 comes to a close but let’s hope not with a bang.

• The Insurgent Among Us: My life as a Rebel, French Officer, and Deserter by Remy Mauduit
• A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 by Alistair Horne
• Battling Buzzards: The Odyssey of the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team 1943–1945 by Gerald Astor
• If You Survive: From Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge to the End of World War II, One American Officer’s Riveting True Story by George Wilson
• The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew J. Bacevich

Business & Leadership

Yet again, I’ve bought way too many books that remain unfinished, but there are lots of solid choices here that I’ll continue to make my way through and any new purchases are on hold in this category given the backlog is full.

• Leading Change by John P. Kotter
• Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow by by Matthew Skelton, Manuel Pais, Ruth Malan
• The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish, Rhiannon Beaubien
• American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company
  by Bryce G. Hoffman
• Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows, Diana Wright
• The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities by Patrick M. Lencioni
• Dynamic Reteaming: The Art and Wisdom of Changing Teams by
  Heidi Helfand
• Leaders: Myth and Reality by Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers, Jay Mangone

Tech

This is the first time I’ve read (or attempted to read) so many technical books because I usually don’t by that many, but sometimes it is more efficient to just get a book on the topic. These topics capture my attempt to get a baseline level of competence in IAM technologies, get more familiarity with Python data tools, and brush up on Ansible earlier in the year.

• Solving Identity Management in Modern Applications: Demystifying OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SAML 2.0 by Yvonne Wilson, Abhishek Hingnikar
• Learning the Pandas Library: Python Tools for Data Munging, Analysis, and Visualization (Treading on Python Book 3)
• Whistleblower: My Journey to Silicon Valley and Fight for Justice at Uber by Susan J. Fowler
• Leading Quality: How Great Leaders Deliver High-Quality Software and Accelerate Growth by Ronald Cummings-John, Owais Peer
• Ansible for DevOps: Server and configuration management for humans
  by Jeff Geerling
• How to Manage Cybersecurity Risk: A Security Leader’s Roadmap with Open FAIR by Christopher T. Carlson