Filed under "Reading"
Bookstack.
I’ve been tagged. Via Stephen Anderson’s Poetpainter:
If you’re like me, you may have several books you’re reading at once. Or maybe not reading, but referencing and scanning. Either way, these are the books piled up on your desk or beside your bed or [wherever else you stack books]. These are the 5 or 6 books that you are ‘in the middle of’.
So, what’s in your BookStack?
Exhibit A:
- The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. A must-read for any user experience designer. This is a thick, thick delicious sauce of brilliance with lots of insight into the way human beings think about the things they use.
- What is a Designer: Things, Places, Messages by Norman Potter. I have to admit that I have to read everything in this book at least twice in order to get the gist of what he’s saying. Definitely not light reading.
- Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type by Kimberly Elam. Haven’t even started this one yet, but it comes highly recommended.
- Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut. If you’ve read Design Observer, you know Michael’s writing style. Witty, charming and insightful, Michael’s essays are both entertaining and educational. From his first meeting with Massimo Vignelli to how much he hates ITC Garamond, Michael tells design stories that are engaging and worthwhile.
- Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge. I just started this book and have found it to be a fascinating look at the history of interaction design, written by a man who was there from the beginning.
- Beautiful Evidence Essential reading for any designer dealing with data representation. The visual style of the book and the ways that the visualization examples are printed in the book are amazing in and of themselves, not to mention Tufte’s writing and ideas on representing data through design.
So there you have it. Hopefully I’ll actually chew my way through this bookstack soon and be able to start another. Got any recommendations for my next round of eyeball exercises? What’s in your bookstack?
In Print.
I’ve been tangentially associated with a couple of books recently, so I thought I’d toss out some plugs while I’m busy not writing here. ;)
The Art & Science of CSS
Several months ago, I was offered the chance to serve as technical reviewer for this book alongside the ever twitter-present Dan Rubin. It was a great experience, and hopefully the authors don’t hate me too much for all my niggling and feedback. It shaped up to be a great book, so check it out if you already haven’t done so.
Textpattern Solutions
Authored by some true Textpattern heavyweights (Kevin Potts, Robert Sable, Nathan Smith, Mary Fredborg & Cody Lindley), Textpattern Solutions appears to be quite the comprehensive guide to my fave CMS. All I really know about this book is that:
- These authors are smart cookies, so the book must be as well.
- The book is thick.
- It’s not in color, which is a good thing as innocent readers may have been blinded by the deluge of pink somewhere in Chapter 1:
That’s pretty cool. Thanks for the inclusion, Nathan! If you’re at all interested in learning (or learning more) about Textpattern, do take a look at this book.
Book 'Em.
Oh boy, it’s meme #2! I vowed to not participate in every meme that got pitched my way but this one has to do with books and the potential for snickering and pointing (“Look at that guy, what a plebian!”) is far too enticing to pass up. Additionally, I am surely the last person to do this thing, which makes it so uncool that there’s no way I can resist. Thanks, Aaron. ;) Here we go.