Here are 81 books that Continuous Delivery fans have personally recommended if you like Continuous Delivery. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

Yevgeniy Brikman Author Of Fundamentals of DevOps and Software Delivery: A Hands-On Guide to Deploying and Managing Software in Production

From my list on practical, hands-on books on DevOps and software delivery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent more than a decade working on infrastructure, from my early days at LinkedIn, where we had to do a massive DevOps transformation to save the company, to co-founding Gruntwork, where I had the opportunity to work with hundreds of companies on their software delivery practices. From all of this, I can say the following with certainty: the DevOps best practices that a handful of the top tech companies have figured out are not filtering down to the rest of the industry. This is making the entire software industry slower, less effective, and less secure—and I see it as my mission to fix that.

Yevgeniy's book list on practical, hands-on books on DevOps and software delivery

Yevgeniy Brikman Why Yevgeniy loves this book

This is the best overview of data storage and distributed systems—two key concepts for building almost any piece of software today—that I've seen anywhere. Martin does a wonderful job of taking a massive body of research and distilling complicated concepts and difficult trade-offs down to a level anyone can understand.

I learned a lot about replication, partitioning, linearizability, locking, write skew, phantoms, transactions, event logs, and more. I'm also a big fan of the final chapter, The Future of Data Systems, which covers ideas such as "unbundling the database", end-to-end event streams, and an important discussion on ethics in programming and data systems.

By Martin Kleppmann ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Designing Data-Intensive Applications as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Data is at the center of many challenges in system design today. Difficult issues need to be figured out, such as scalability, consistency, reliability, efficiency, and maintainability. In addition, we have an overwhelming variety of tools, including NoSQL datastores, stream or batch processors, and message brokers. What are the right choices for your application? How do you make sense of all these buzzwords? In this practical and comprehensive guide, author Martin Kleppmann helps you navigate this diverse landscape by examining the pros and cons of various technologies for processing and storing data. Software keeps changing, but the fundamental principles remain…


If you love Continuous Delivery...

Ad

Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Kubernetes in Action

Magnus Larsson Author Of Microservices with Spring Boot 3 and Spring Cloud: Build resilient and scalable microservices using Spring Cloud, Istio, and Kubernetes

From my list on mastering Java and Spring-based microservices.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for developing production-ready, cooperating microservices began in 2008 when I first started assisting customers in creating distributed systems—long before the term “microservices” was coined. During that time, I faced significant challenges, including grappling with the “Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing”. Since then, I’ve dedicated most of my career to deepening my understanding of these complexities and finding ways to address them through robust architecture, design patterns, and the right tools.

Magnus' book list on mastering Java and Spring-based microservices

Magnus Larsson Why Magnus loves this book

Kubernetes is the go-to tool for orchestrating a landscape of cooperating microservices, making it a crucial skill to master.

This book guided me through Kubernetes, from the basics, such as pods, services, and deployments, to more advanced topics, like its inner workings and auto-scaling resources. What I particularly appreciate is the balance between theory and practical examples, reinforced by exercises with GitHub-hosted source code, which I also found helpful as a starting point for building real-world applications.

By Marko Luksa ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Kubernetes in Action as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Description

With Kubernetes, users don't have to worry about which specific machine in their data center their application is running on. Each layer in their application is decoupled from other layers so they can scale, update, and maintain them independently.

Kubernetes in Action teaches developers how to use Kubernetes to deploy self-healing scalable distributed applications. By the end, readers will be able to build and deploy applications in a proper way to take full advantage of the Kubernetes platform.

Key features

* Easy to follow guide

* Hands-on examples

* Clearly-written

Audience

The book is for both application developers as…


Book cover of Infrastructure as Code: Dynamic Systems for the Cloud Age

Yevgeniy Brikman Author Of Fundamentals of DevOps and Software Delivery: A Hands-On Guide to Deploying and Managing Software in Production

From my list on practical, hands-on books on DevOps and software delivery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent more than a decade working on infrastructure, from my early days at LinkedIn, where we had to do a massive DevOps transformation to save the company, to co-founding Gruntwork, where I had the opportunity to work with hundreds of companies on their software delivery practices. From all of this, I can say the following with certainty: the DevOps best practices that a handful of the top tech companies have figured out are not filtering down to the rest of the industry. This is making the entire software industry slower, less effective, and less secure—and I see it as my mission to fix that.

Yevgeniy's book list on practical, hands-on books on DevOps and software delivery

Yevgeniy Brikman Why Yevgeniy loves this book

This is a book for practitioners, by a practitioner, full of practical learnings that I was able to start using in my work immediately.

I especially appreciated the parts teaching the core principles of infrastructure as code (e.g., systems are disposable, consistent, can easily be reproduced, etc.), core practices of infrastructure as code (e.g., use definition files, self-documented systems and processes, version all the things, etc.), and the idea of antifragile systems (rather than just systems that you prevent from breaking) and autonomic systems (rather than just automated systems).

By Kief Morris ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Infrastructure as Code as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Six years ago, Infrastructure as Code was a new concept. Today, as even banks and other conservative organizations plan moves to the cloud, development teams for companies worldwide are attempting to build large infrastructure codebases. With this practical book, Kief Morris of ThoughtWorks shows you how to effectively use principles, practices, and patterns pioneered by DevOps teams to manage cloud-age infrastructure.

Ideal for system administrators, infrastructure engineers, software developers, team leads, and architects, this updated edition demonstrates how you can exploit cloud and automation technology to make changes easily, safely, quickly, and responsibly. You'll learn how to define everything as…


If you love Jez Humble...

Ad

Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of Practice of Cloud System Administration, The: DevOps and SRE Practices for Web Services, Volume 2

Yevgeniy Brikman Author Of Fundamentals of DevOps and Software Delivery: A Hands-On Guide to Deploying and Managing Software in Production

From my list on practical, hands-on books on DevOps and software delivery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent more than a decade working on infrastructure, from my early days at LinkedIn, where we had to do a massive DevOps transformation to save the company, to co-founding Gruntwork, where I had the opportunity to work with hundreds of companies on their software delivery practices. From all of this, I can say the following with certainty: the DevOps best practices that a handful of the top tech companies have figured out are not filtering down to the rest of the industry. This is making the entire software industry slower, less effective, and less secure—and I see it as my mission to fix that.

Yevgeniy's book list on practical, hands-on books on DevOps and software delivery

Yevgeniy Brikman Why Yevgeniy loves this book

This book felt like a chance to sit with a few experienced Ops people and hear their war stories.

The book is full of concrete, actionable learnings that are essential for running software, including operational requirements (e.g., configuration, draining, hot swaps, feature toggles, graceful degradation, etc.), software architecture (e.g., three-tier web service, four-tier web service, load balancing models etc.), scaling patterns (e.g., horizontal duplication, service splits, caching, etc.), resiliency patterns (software vs hardware resiliency, spare capacity, failure domains, etc.), and much more.

I loved being able to pick up decades of experience and hard-won knowledge by just flipping through a few pages of a book! 

By Thomas Limoncelli , Strata Chalup , Christina Hogan

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Practice of Cloud System Administration, The as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"There's an incredible amount of depth and thinking in the practices described here, and it's impressive to see it all in one place."

-Win Treese, coauthor of Designing Systems for Internet Commerce

The Practice of Cloud System Administration, Volume 2, focuses on "distributed" or "cloud" computing and brings a DevOps/SRE sensibility to the practice of system administration. Unsatisfied with books that cover either design or operations in isolation, the authors created this authoritative reference centered on a comprehensive approach.

Case studies and examples from Google, Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and other industry giants are explained in practical ways that…


Book cover of Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests

Jan Van Ryswyck Author Of Writing Maintainable Unit Tests: Mastering the Art of Loosely Coupled Unit Tests

From my list on starting your software developer journey.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professional software developer for more than 22 years now. I’ve used many programming languages, platforms, frameworks, etc. throughout my career. However, the only constant for me personally was the practice of Test-Driven Development. I’ve never stopped learning about the principles and practices behind it, and it paid huge dividends throughout my career. I’m very humbled and grateful to be able to learn from all those amazing people over the years, that I decided to write a book on the topic. Giving back some of the knowledge that I gathered about TDD throughout 18+ years. 

Jan's book list on starting your software developer journey

Jan Van Ryswyck Why Jan loves this book

I must admit that the first time I read this book, it completely didn’t resonate with me. Sure, I picked up a couple of very important concepts here and there. One of those concepts is the “Test Data Builder”. However, some of the techniques I completely rejected. It took me a couple of years to start opening up to the practices described in this book. After a second read, I came to the conclusion that this excellent work deserved more credit. That’s why I added it to this list. This book shaped my entire thinking around Outside-In TDD, which is a very important approach to guiding well-designed software systems.     

By Steve Freeman , Nat Pryce ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Foreword by Kent Beck

"The authors of this book have led a revolution in the craft of programming by controlling the environment in which software grows." --Ward Cunningham

"At last, a book suffused with code that exposes the deep symbiosis between TDD and OOD. This one's a keeper." --Robert C. Martin

"If you want to be an expert in the state of the art in TDD, you need to understand the ideas in this book."--Michael Feathers

Test-Driven Development (TDD) is now an established technique for delivering better software faster. TDD is based on a simple idea: Write tests for your…


Book cover of xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code

Jan Van Ryswyck Author Of Writing Maintainable Unit Tests: Mastering the Art of Loosely Coupled Unit Tests

From my list on starting your software developer journey.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professional software developer for more than 22 years now. I’ve used many programming languages, platforms, frameworks, etc. throughout my career. However, the only constant for me personally was the practice of Test-Driven Development. I’ve never stopped learning about the principles and practices behind it, and it paid huge dividends throughout my career. I’m very humbled and grateful to be able to learn from all those amazing people over the years, that I decided to write a book on the topic. Giving back some of the knowledge that I gathered about TDD throughout 18+ years. 

Jan's book list on starting your software developer journey

Jan Van Ryswyck Why Jan loves this book

This is the most complete and exhaustive reference book when it comes to test automation. It’s a massive book that’s got pretty much all bases covered: test patterns, test strategies, test smells, test practices, etc. … It’s all there. If you want to get a feel about what’s covered, check out the xUnit Test Patterns website. This book provides all the information to become an expert at all kinds of automated tests. It requires a lot of effort to process the content, but it’s definitely all worth it!

By Gerard Meszaros ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked xUnit Test Patterns as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Software testing has received renewed attention with the widespread adoption of Extreme Programming and other agile methodologies. While testing does not directly improve the quality of software, the under-appreciated practice provides a timely and accurate measurement (a reality check) so that the reader knows whether any new action needs to be taken. Automated software testing is used to ensure that once the software works, it is not accidentally broken during subsequent software development or maintenance activities. This book describes patterns for writing automated tests using the XUnit family (e.g., JUnit and NUnit) of test automation frameworks. The author uses the…


If you love Continuous Delivery...

Ad

Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team

Markus Gärtner Author Of ATDD by Example: A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development

From my list on surviving the Agile world as a software tester.

Why am I passionate about this?

Markus Gärtner works as Organizational Design Consultant, Certified Scrum Trainer, and Agile Coach for it-agile GmbH, Hamburg, Germany. Markus, author of ATDD by Example - A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development, a student of the work of Jerry Weinberg, received the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person Award in 2013 and contributes to the Softwerkskammer, the German Software Craft movement. Markus regularly presents at Agile and testing conferences all over the globe, as well as dedicating himself to writing about agile software development, software craft, and software testing, foremost in an Agile context.

Markus' book list on surviving the Agile world as a software tester

Markus Gärtner Why Markus loves this book

The second book from Gregory and Crispin brought me up-to-date on the different trends in the Agile world, ten years after having delved into their first book.

How do you share the quality mindset in a DevOps culture? What about Design Thinking? With many more examples from the industry, the two authors made me curious about some of the things that I had ignored until I read their book.

By Janet Gregory , Lisa Crispin ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked More Agile Testing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin pioneered the agile testing discipline with their previous work, Agile Testing. Now, in More Agile Testing, they reflect on all they've learned since. They address crucial emerging issues, share evolved agile practices, and cover key issues agile testers have asked to learn more about.

Packed with new examples from real teams, this insightful guide offers detailed information about adapting agile testing for your environment; learning from experience and continually improving your test processes; scaling agile testing across teams; and overcoming the pitfalls of automated testing. You'll find brand-new coverage of agile testing for the enterprise,…


Book cover of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

Markus Gärtner Author Of ATDD by Example: A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development

From my list on surviving the Agile world as a software tester.

Why am I passionate about this?

Markus Gärtner works as Organizational Design Consultant, Certified Scrum Trainer, and Agile Coach for it-agile GmbH, Hamburg, Germany. Markus, author of ATDD by Example - A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development, a student of the work of Jerry Weinberg, received the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person Award in 2013 and contributes to the Softwerkskammer, the German Software Craft movement. Markus regularly presents at Agile and testing conferences all over the globe, as well as dedicating himself to writing about agile software development, software craft, and software testing, foremost in an Agile context.

Markus' book list on surviving the Agile world as a software tester

Markus Gärtner Why Markus loves this book

While this book was still in the writing, Crispin and Gregory published draft chapters on the internet.

At the time, I read them, and managed to introduce many of the great insights into my own work. Even though I was working in a more traditional environment, the ideas from the two ladies inspired me on my journey to the agile methodologies.

I even managed to contribute some of my own real-world examples from my own experiences to their writings – and they decided to include some of them.

By Lisa Crispin , Janet Gregory ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Agile Testing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Te>Two of the industry's most experienced agile testing practitioners and consultants, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory, have teamed up to bring you the definitive answers to these questions and many others. In Agile Testing, Crispin and Gregory define agile testing and illustrate the tester's role with examples from real agile teams. They teach you how to use the agile testing quadrants to identify what testing is needed, who should do it, and what tools might help. The book chronicles an agile software development iteration from the viewpoint of a tester and explains the seven key success factors
of agile testing.…


Book cover of Release It!

Magnus Larsson Author Of Microservices with Spring Boot 3 and Spring Cloud: Build resilient and scalable microservices using Spring Cloud, Istio, and Kubernetes

From my list on mastering Java and Spring-based microservices.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for developing production-ready, cooperating microservices began in 2008 when I first started assisting customers in creating distributed systems—long before the term “microservices” was coined. During that time, I faced significant challenges, including grappling with the “Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing”. Since then, I’ve dedicated most of my career to deepening my understanding of these complexities and finding ways to address them through robust architecture, design patterns, and the right tools.

Magnus' book list on mastering Java and Spring-based microservices

Magnus Larsson Why Magnus loves this book

A common reason for microservice projects to fail is a lack of understanding of how to build resilient and fault-tolerant microservices.

This book was a game-changer for me, providing essential strategies to address these challenges. It taught me how to avoid anti-patterns like Cascading Failures and embrace patterns like Circuit Breaker and Bulkhead to manage temporary network issues and overload situations. The real-world solutions it offers were immediately applicable to my projects.

By Michael T. Nygard ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Release It! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A single dramatic software failure can cost a company millions of dollars - but can be avoided with simple changes to design and architecture. This new edition of the best-selling industry standard shows you how to create systems that run longer, with fewer failures, and recover better when bad things happen. New coverage includes DevOps, microservices, and cloud-native architecture. Stability antipatterns have grown to include systemic problems in large-scale systems. This is a must-have pragmatic guide to engineering for production systems. If you're a software developer, and you don't want to get alerts every night for the rest of your…


If you love Jez Humble...

Ad

Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns

Jesse Liberty Author Of Git for Programmers: Master Git for effective implementation of version control for your programming projects

From my list on for creating great software.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been coding for over 30 years. I’ve seen some miserable interfaces, and some large programs that collapse under their own weight. Software was, at one point, notorious for being late, over budget, and unreliable. These books have helped turn the corner on these failings, and I have found each of them very valuable in my day-to-day programming. While you can learn technique and even languages online, the kind of insight found in these books is rare and worth spending time and money on.

Jesse's book list on for creating great software

Jesse Liberty Why Jesse loves this book

There are literally dozens of good books on unit testing, but I highly recommend reading at least one. Unit testing is one of the most important practices that a great many programmers do not do. It isn’t easy, once you get past tiny programs, but it is absolutely essential if you wish to create robust code. Without unit testing you fix one thing over here, and break it over there. With good unit testing you know that your program will be flexible and easily evolved.

By Vladimir Khorikov ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Unit Testing: Principles, Patterns and Practices shows you how to refine your existing unit tests by implementing modern best practices. You'll learn to spot which tests are performing, which need refactoring, and which need to be deleted entirely! Upgrade your testing suite with new testing styles, good patterns, and reliable automated testing.



Unit Testing: Principles, Practices and Patterns is a practical guide to modern unit testing best practices. Microsoft MVP Vladimir Khorikov takes you hands-on with examples of the ideal unit test and unit testing practices, building your skills step by step on a solid foundation.



Key Features

* A…


Book cover of Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems
Book cover of Kubernetes in Action
Book cover of Infrastructure as Code: Dynamic Systems for the Cloud Age

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,210

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in software, agile software development, and software development?

Software 61 books