ChemaclassBook summaries and notes from my reading journey across software craftsmanship, psychology, philosophy, and personal development. Each entry includes key takeaways and my own reflections. If you're looking for your next book or want the essential ideas without the full read, start here.
50 rules for life from philosophy's most famous pessimist
Schopenhauer's posthumous collection of 50 rules for practical happiness, built on the idea that avoiding suffering matters more than chasing pleasure. Surprisingly useful advice from philosophy's most famous pessimist.
I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man.
A bitter, hyper-conscious man retreats from society to wrestle with free will, spite, and the stubborn irrationality of human nature.
Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better
A deep dive into monetary history through a technological lens. Lyn Alden traces how innovations shaped money across centuries, examining commodity-based systems, modern fiat currencies, and emerging alternatives like Bitcoin. Essential reading for understanding why our financial system is failing and what we can do about it.
If you've ever scratched your head at the economy, wondered why prices keep rising, or questioned why money seems to lose value over time, Principles of Economics by Saifedean Ammous might blow your mind. It's not your typical dry economics book. Instead, it's a bold, no-nonsense guide to understanding how the world really works—through the lens of Austrian economics. Here's what stood out to me.
How central planning can slowly erode freedom
A quick and plain-English summary of Hayek's classic take on freedom, planning, and why good intentions can still go very wrong.
Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
In an era dominated by constant connectivity, the concept of digital minimalism emerges as a refreshing antidote. Coined by Cal Newport, this philosophy isn't about rejecting technology but rather about using it with greater intention and care. By implementing digital minimalism, individuals can reclaim focus, reduce anxiety, and cultivate deeper, more meaningful relationships.
From Turing to Nakamoto
A story about the evolutionary process that gave birth to computers, networks, cybersecurity and digital money. From Greece to Bitcoin, Cryptoria narrates a selection of milestones that occurred before and after Alan Turing. The book showcases a broad collection of people, organizations, concepts and inventions that evidence the deep historical and cultural relationship between mathematics, cryptography, computer science and the struggle for individual sovereignty. Cryptoria is addressed to all people convinced that, beyond inherited or imposed ways, there are other forms of social and economic organization that can and should be explored.
A technical study about how Bitcoin works
Bitcoin with Rigor goes beyond a basic explanation of Bitcoin, offering a detailed analysis of how Bitcoin works. It breaks down its components clearly, helping readers understand both the parts and the system as a whole. This deep dive explores Bitcoin’s potential and risks, recognizing it as a decade-old monetary experiment that hasn’t yet stood the test of time like gold or silver. Despite this, its innovative design makes it a promising system for the present and future.
Purpose in despair: Frankl's holocaust insights
In Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl not only shares his harrowing experiences from the Holocaust but also presents a profound philosophy on the human condition. This book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, exploring how even in the darkest of times, individuals can find purpose and meaning.
Technical innovations from the trenches
With thousands of 'crypto' projects out there, they say Bitcoin is old and boring, but nothing could be further from the truth. This book will guide you through the latest developments in Bitcoin, as seen through the eyes of one of its many developers.
Programming the Open Blockchain
This book covers everything from the basics to the most profound technical aspects of how Bitcoin works. It is an excellent guide through the complex world of Bitcoin, providing the knowledge you need to participate in the Internet of Money.
The Story of the People and Projects That Inspired Bitcoin
Bitcoin did not appear out of nowhere. For decades prior to Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention, a diverse group of computer scientists, privacy activists, and heterodox economists tried to create a digital form of money that could operate independently of government control. The Genesis Book tells the story of the people and projects that inspired the invention of the world’s first successful peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
A Novel About IT, DevOps, And Helping Your Business Win
This is a story about an impossible project in which the people around are constantly playing politics, busy fixing critical bugs and wasting constant efforts on quick patches instead of helping the business thrive.
How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean
Radical Candor is a management philosophy developed by Kim Scott, a former Google leader. It's a crash course on how to be a great manager, focusing on being empathetic and results-oriented. The core idea is to create a stress-free environment where people feel safe to speak their minds, get their jobs done, and feel respected.
How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
Achieve More, Suffer Less
Marcos Vazquez combines stoic philosophy with modern psychology to train your mind for clarity, determination, and discipline in the face of adversity.
A classic novel about Santiago, a boy who embarks on a journey seeking treasure in Egypt, learning the true importance of self-improvement and what really matters in life.
Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want.
Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy
It's Your Ship is a leadership book written by D. Michael Abrashoff, a former commander of the USS Benfold, a guided missile destroyer. The book focuses on Abrashoff's experiences and the leadership principles he applied to transform the performance and culture of his ship.
This book is fantastic and frightening, but entirely plausible. It doesn't just seem scientifically possible, but its characters are living people shaken out of the civilization they know into the horror of a world dominated by triffids.
The Collected Writings of Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto
A compilation of Satoshi Nakamoto's emails, forum posts, and writings from 2008-2010 that detail Bitcoin's creation, design decisions, and the vision behind the protocol.
A classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.
Ray Bradbury's dystopian masterpiece about a fireman whose job is to burn books, until a chance encounter makes him question everything about his society's war on knowledge.
The battle for control over Bitcoin's protocol rules
Jonathan Bier chronicles the Bitcoin blocksize war (2015-2017), exploring the key players, strategies, and ideological battles that shaped who controls Bitcoin's protocol.
A Beginner's Guide to Agile Implementation and Leadership
Projects that followed a Waterfall methodology tended to exceed their expenses in the first initiative over time, while the product delivered was below standard and difficult to use. That situation originated that a group of developers signed a brief, 68-word manifesto in 2001.
For Yourself, Your Team, and Your Company
An effective remote work environment is about treating everyone as remote, with everyone in mind having the same level, equality, and information.
Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
What I've Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole
Bitcoin as more than just money—a deep dive into economics, philosophy, and culture. Like Alice in Wonderland, exploring Bitcoin is full of surprises.
How to Create Innovation, Solve People Puzzles, and Win in Business
Told through the story of one bold company (People First IT), Adapt or Die takes readers through the unparalleled business system known as The Algorithm of Success that has the potential to inspire, ignite, and affect change for all aspects of an organization.
A bold framework for leadership in today's ever-changing world
From the bestselling author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, a bold framework for leadership in today's ever-changing world.
Or the strange story of the time-thieves and the child who brought the stolen time back to the people
Momo is a modern fairytale that shows the fight between good and evil in our contemporary society, focusing on the lack of time to care for other people.
What is coupling, and why is it bad? What is decoupling, and how to do it efficiently? This book is a compilation of strategies to decouple your domain code from those infrastructure details, so you can enjoy a healthier system in the long run.
The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management
The Essential Drucker contains twenty-six selections on management in the organization, management and the individual, and management and society. It covers the basic principles and concerns of management and its problems, challenges, and opportunities, giving managers, executives, and professionals the tools to perform the tasks that the economy and society of tomorrow will demand of them.
Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.
Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.
Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value
Continuous Discovery Habits (2021) explores how product managers and designers can keep making a positive impact on their customers’ lives. It explores an optimal decision-making process for product teams, so that they can continue to improve their offerings.
The Tactical Guide to Company Building
Learn how to efficiently scale your business from startup to corporation by implementing a system of accountability, effective problem-solving, and transparent feedback.
The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
If you cut off a spider's head, it dies; if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.
Disciplines, Standards, and Ethics
Robert C. Martin covers the three pillars of software craftsmanship: TDD disciplines with practical examples, professional standards for teams, and the ethical responsibilities of programmers.
Doing What Works to Build Better Software Faster
This book presents software development as an engineering practice at every level. To master software engineering, we must become experts at learning and managing complexity.
Published in 2017, most of the technology shown is already history
How is created Bitcoin address? How does it work the creation of the private & public keys and how are they known as wallets? And many other interesting questions.
From introduction to advanced concepts
A great book about Docker, from introduction to advanced concepts all covered by easy-to-follow examples.
Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow
Team Topologies focuses on how to set up dynamic team structures and interaction modes that can help teams adapt quickly to new conditions, and achieve fast and safe software delivery.
Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel
There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don't have and don't need. Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness.
In Modern CTO, Joel Beasley provides readers with an in-depth road map on how to successfully navigate the unexplored and jagged transition between these two roles. Drawing from personal experience, Joel gives a refreshing take on the challenges, lessons, and things to avoid on this journey.
Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't
A company's biggest strength doesn't lie in its products or services. It always lies in its people, and in their ability to cooperate closely and rally behind the organization, especially during a crisis.
A story
A fable in novella form about a seagull who is trying to learn about life and flight, and a homily about self-perfection.
A Leadership Fable
This book is a leadership fable about a tech company that is struggling to get more customers. The C level is not working as a team, and they have a hard time coming to any agreements which result in negative morale. Until the new CEO, Catherine Petersen, joins the team, and she is able to recognize the problems and help the team overcome them by understanding the situation.
How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Start with Why asks (and answers) the questions: why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?
The hidden power of what you say, and what you don't
In this book, the former submarine commander Captain L. David Marquet dives deep into one of the most investigated marine disasters, the sinking of the El Faro, and surfaces with new ideas on leadership and language.
The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
The Bitcoin Standard analyzes the historical context to the rise of Bitcoin, the economic properties that have allowed it to grow quickly, and its likely economic, political, and social implications.
A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
The book is about his leadership theories to how he implemented a fresh leadership model. Including the limitations of a hierarchical top-down model, why/how he failed to empower his team earlier in his career, and how the circumstances for Santa Fe were ideal for him to experiment with the new leader-leader approach.
The novel is a deeper reflection of Salinger's own youth, his complicated relationship with growing up and the generational trauma affected by World War II.
Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse. It has established itself as a true classic. The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island, and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves.
How to Be the Leader Your Development Team Needs
A great compilation of all topics that are important for management: 1:1s, performance reviews, hiring and laying off, workplace politics, remote work, and others.
Productive Projects and Teams
Software development is about people: when, how and where they can best work together. Not about programming languages or tools. Not about fast computers, networks or internet access.
Small Things, Done Well
Leadership practices are small things done repetitively over time. Managers tell you where you are, leaders tell you where you're going.
Collective Wisdom from the Experts
As a manager your work is to create clarity, clarity, and more clarity.
A Journey to Recovery
Zombie Scrum Survival Guide reveals why Scrum runs aground and shows how to supercharge your Scrum outcomes, while having a lot more fun along the way.
Creating Products that Customers Love
Understanding the product owner’s role and envisioning the product.
25 Golden Stock Investing Lessons
Stock market basics & essentials.
How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market
America's most successful money manager tells how average investors can beat the pros by using what they know. According to Lynch, investment opportunities are everywhere.
An Amazing Way to Deal With Change In Your Work and In Your Life
This book presents a tale inside the main story that consists of 4 characters: two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little persons, Hem and Haw.
What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
Explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to become rich.
Creating Reusable Software Components
Apply design principles to your classes, preparing them for reuse. You will use package design principles to create packages that are just right in terms of cohesion and coupling, and are user- and maintainer-friendly at the same time.
All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.
Orwell's political allegory about a farmyard rebellion that descends into tyranny, exposing how power corrupts even the most idealistic revolutions.
Powerful Techniques for Creating Flexible, Readable, and Maintainable Object-Oriented Code in Any OO Language
Matthias Noback's practical guide to writing flexible, readable, and maintainable object-oriented code, with techniques applicable to any OO language from Python to PHP.
Domain-Driven Design Distilled brings DDD to life. Whether you're a developer, consultant, or customer, it will help you understand it, so you can benefit from its power.
The best guide that brings your coding skills a level up.
The best guide that brings your coding and architecture skills a level up. All the modern PHP features combined with the elegance of a well designed modular design.
Negotiating as if your life depended on it
From policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, to becoming the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator to teaching negotiation at leading universities, Chris Voss has tested the techniques in 'Never Split the Difference' across the full spectrum of human endeavor and proved their effectiveness.
The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
Every organisation, whatever its size, constantly has to come to grips with delivering a product or service on time and on budget. Scrum shows you how. It explains how to define precisely what it is that you are seeking to achieve, how to set up the team to achieve it, and how to monitor progress until the project is successfully completed.
Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages
A hands-on tour of Clojure, Haskell, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, and Ruby. Learn how each language thinks differently and broaden your perspective on programming.
The Call of Cthulu, the tale of a horrifying underwater monster coming to life and threatening mankind, spawning an entire mythology, with the power to strike terror into the hearts of even the Great Old Ones.
Lovecraft's foundational cosmic horror tale about the discovery of an ancient underwater entity whose awakening threatens all of humanity and sanity itself.
A novella about alienation, identity, and transformation
Kafka's iconic novella about alienation and identity. Gregor Samsa wakes as a monstrous insect and must confront his family's revulsion and his own fading humanity.
A society terrorised by a totalitarian ideology
One of Britain's most popular novels, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in a society terrorised by a totalitarian ideology propagated by The Party.
The art of the entrepreneur can be summed up in a single word: managing
Andy Grove's management classic from Intel, covering managerial leverage, meetings, decision-making, motivation, and how to maximize team output in technology organizations.
A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Camille Fournier maps the career path from engineer to CTO, covering 1:1s, mentoring, team management, and the evolving responsibilities at each level of technical leadership.
Back to Basics
This book is about Agile. What it was, what it is, and what it will be. This is a back-to-basics talk that covers the history of Agile, what motivated it, and what has happened to it since.
Embrace Change
Extreme Programming (XP) is an agile software development framework that aims to produce higher quality software, and higher quality of life for the development team. XP is the most specific of the agile frameworks regarding appropriate engineering practices for software development.
Symfony 5: The Fast Track
Fabien Potencier's official guide to building web applications with Symfony 5, covering the framework from scratch to production deployment.
An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions. He calls them atomic habits.
Start-to-finish strategies for working with large, untested legacy code bases
Michael Feathers presents practical techniques for adding tests to untested code, breaking dependencies, and safely refactoring large legacy systems without introducing bugs.
How should we behave in a battle?
The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician, and kindred to the Realpolitik of his time, termed in China as Legalism.
A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design
Robert C. Martin's guide to SOLID principles, component design, and architectural boundaries that keep software systems flexible, testable, and maintainable over time.
Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change
Charles Duhigg explores the science behind habit formation, showing how habits work, why they exist, and practical strategies to transform them for personal and professional growth.
The journey to mastery
Key takeaways from Hunt and Thomas's classic on pragmatic software development, including DRY principles, the right mindset, and how to choose and master your tools.
How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
Sprint offers a transformative formula for testing ideas that works whether you’re at a startup or a large organization. Within five days, you’ll move from idea to prototype to decision, saving you and your team countless hours and countless dollars. A must read for entrepreneurs of all stripes.
A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
Robert C. Martin's guide to professional behavior in software development, covering time management, pressure handling, TDD practices, and what it truly means to be a software craftsman.
Collective whisdom from the experts
Tap into the wisdom of experts to learn what every programmer should know, no matter what language you use. With the 97 short and extremely useful tips for programmers in this book, you'll expand your skills by adopting new approaches to old problems, learning appropriate best practices, and honing your craft through sound advice.
A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
Even bad code can function. But if code isn't clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn't have to be that way.