Here are 12 books that To Engineer Is Human fans have personally recommended if you like
To Engineer Is Human.
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I ‘pick the brains’ of expert software developers to understand what makes them expert. I’ve spent decades studying how professional software developers reason and communicate about design and problem solving. Informed by the seminal books I’ve highlighted (among many others), my research is grounded in empirical studies of professionals in industry and draws on cognitive and social theory. Observing, talking to, and working with hundreds of professional software developers in organisations ranging from start-ups to the world’s major software companies has exposed actionable insights into the thinking that distinguishes high-performing teams.
In terms of conveying how to convey information (not just data) visually, Tufte is the undoubted master.
This book is full of pithy examples, with clear insights about what works, what doesn’t, and why. I came across it when I was trying to understand why I was disgruntled with so many graphical representations – and Tufte provided useful clarity about my niggles.
(N.B. I had to pick just one of his titles for this list – but I’d recommend his other books as well.)
The classic book on statistical graphics, charts, tables. Theory and practice in the design of data graphics, 250 illustrations of the best (and a few of the worst) statistical graphics, with detailed analysis of how to display data for precise, effective, quick analysis. Design of the high-resolution displays, small multiples. Editing and improving graphics. The data-ink ratio. Time-series, relational graphics, data maps, multivariate designs. Detection of graphical deception: design variation vs. data variation. Sources of deception. Aesthetics and data graphical displays. This is the second edition of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. This edition provides excellent color reproductions of…
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…
I ‘pick the brains’ of expert software developers to understand what makes them expert. I’ve spent decades studying how professional software developers reason and communicate about design and problem solving. Informed by the seminal books I’ve highlighted (among many others), my research is grounded in empirical studies of professionals in industry and draws on cognitive and social theory. Observing, talking to, and working with hundreds of professional software developers in organisations ranging from start-ups to the world’s major software companies has exposed actionable insights into the thinking that distinguishes high-performing teams.
Nigel Cross was one of the first design researchers to express the notion of ‘designerly’ ways of thinking and knowing – “the application of scientific and other organised knowledge to practical tasks…” – as means of addressing ill-defined and ill-structured problems.
The attention to ‘messy’ problems, and to the iterative and fluid nature of the design process, is what first drew me to his work; what kept me coming back was a combination of Cross’s clarity of thought, and the way he grounds his perspectives in studies of outstanding designers and real-world examples.
In this compilation of key lectures and essays, he reflects on the nature of design and discusses what sorts of cognitive skills, strategies, and abilities effective designers bring to bear.
A revised and edited collection of key parts of Professor Cross's published work, this book offers a timeline of scholarship and research over the course of 25 years, and a resource for understanding how designers think and work. Coverage includes the nature and nurture of design ability; creative cognition in design; the natural intelligence of design; design discipline versus design science; and expertise in design.
Being a creative person, I studied design to make the world better… only to realise that great ideas and designs often falter because we hold ourselves back by the way we think. I had to study philosophy to understand what is limiting us. And then I left my own design work behind to study the practices expert creatives (like top design professionals) have developed to get past these roadblocks. Having discovered how they can create new frames, time and time again, it has become my mission to empower other people to do this – not only on a project level, but taking these practices to the organizational sector and societal transformation.
I very much resonate with the way Schon describes a professional field not in terms of knowledge or skills, but in terms of practices: our approaches to the problems we face.
And each approach implies a framing of the situation… (where a "frame" is a way of seeing, thinking, and acting). Understanding your own frames and those of others creates deep insight into what is actually going on.
Becoming a "reflective practitioner" is immensely empowering.
A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions,engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning,to show how professionals really go about solving problems.The best professionals, Donald Schoen maintains, know more than they can put into words. To meet the challenges of their work, they rely less on formulas learned in graduate school than on the kind of improvisation learned in practice. This unarticulated, largely unexamined process is the subject of Schoen's provocatively original book, an effort to show precisely how "reflection-in-action" works and how this vital creativity might be fostered in future professionals.
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…
I ‘pick the brains’ of expert software developers to understand what makes them expert. I’ve spent decades studying how professional software developers reason and communicate about design and problem solving. Informed by the seminal books I’ve highlighted (among many others), my research is grounded in empirical studies of professionals in industry and draws on cognitive and social theory. Observing, talking to, and working with hundreds of professional software developers in organisations ranging from start-ups to the world’s major software companies has exposed actionable insights into the thinking that distinguishes high-performing teams.
This book is a delightful example of what happens when someone engages eyes and mind: it provides important insights into the cussedness of things people design, by looking thoughtfully at simple, ‘everyday things’.
In doing so, Norman both illustrates the constructive application of cognitive science in understanding design, and provides a compelling argument for user-centred design.
Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure our which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this fascinating, ingenious,even liberating,book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology.The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization. The book presents examples aplenty,among them, the VCR, computer, and office telephone, all…
I grew up in Edinburgh, an amazingly atmospheric city riddled with tales of murder, mayhem, and spooky happenings. As a child, I spent many hours wandering around the closes, alleys, and graveyards. When at University, my Master's Thesis was on the influence of City Improvement on Crime in Victorian Dundee. The subject reawakened my interest in the subject and led directly to me writing a series of nonfiction Victorian crime books. These books led to me writing the Detective Watters fictional series, based mainly in Dundee.
I have always enjoyed Victorian mystery novels, and the Malvern Mystery ticks all my boxes: mystery, intrigue, a dash of humor, atmosphere, and some quirky historical facts. I liked the fact it was set in a specific area–Malvern in Herefordshire–and had stunning descriptions of the town and the area, and included aspects of the supernatural as well as contemporary events.
I l liked the fact the characters were well defined, with a strong female lead without diminishing the male characters. I especially liked the emphasis on the unusual angles of history and the interwoven superstition and Victorian modernity.
I grew up in Edinburgh, an amazingly atmospheric city riddled with tales of murder, mayhem, and spooky happenings. As a child, I spent many hours wandering around the closes, alleys, and graveyards. When at University, my Master's Thesis was on the influence of City Improvement on Crime in Victorian Dundee. The subject reawakened my interest in the subject and led directly to me writing a series of nonfiction Victorian crime books. These books led to me writing the Detective Watters fictional series, based mainly in Dundee.
I loved this book, which presented a suspect for the Jack the Ripper murders with a first-person approach that puts the reader inside the Ripper’s mind. I must admit I had never considered Dr Cream as a serious contender until I read this book, but Griffith-Jones removes all doubt with her immaculately researched account. I do like the amount of genuine research the author has put into writing her book.
I liked the atmosphere–vital in any historical novel–and the small details that always add to the feeling.
Griffith-Jones introduced us to the underbelly of Victorian London through Cream’s eyes in a delicious manner. One felt as if one was there: I loved that.
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…
I grew up in Edinburgh, an amazingly atmospheric city riddled with tales of murder, mayhem, and spooky happenings. As a child, I spent many hours wandering around the closes, alleys, and graveyards. When at University, my Master's Thesis was on the influence of City Improvement on Crime in Victorian Dundee. The subject reawakened my interest in the subject and led directly to me writing a series of nonfiction Victorian crime books. These books led to me writing the Detective Watters fictional series, based mainly in Dundee.
I read this book in a single sitting, on a stormy Winter’s day and night, which is quite appropriate. I have read many of Porter’s books and loved Porter's take on the Jack the Ripper story, which was impressively different, with textual similarities to Conan Doyle and, perhaps more significantly, to RLS' approach to Jekyll and Hyde, another favorite book, although in a slightly different genre. I loved Porter’s method of conveying atmosphere–without which no murder or historical novel is worth reading.
Central to the book is Jack the Ripper's journal, whose violent outbursts reach out on two levels—the images contained within the journal and the impact of the evil on the modern reader. I loved the connection between the 19th century and the reader, which was too powerful to deny.
I found the historical background fascinating, the embedded message intriguing, and the book itself compelling. A masterpiece.
On the table of psychiatrist Robert Cavendish lay a strange set of papers, claimed to be the journal of the infamous Whitechapel murderer whose crimes instilled terror on the streets of Victorian London.
Delving deeper into the journal, Robert is convinced of its authenticity, and finds that the words of the Ripper have a strange and compelling effect on him. Unable to cast the pages aside, he is drawn into the dark, sinister world of Jack The Ripper.
Robert is about to find out just how thin the line between sanity and madness really is. But can he distinguish fact…
Fiona Rule is a writer, researcher, and historian specialising in the history of London.
She is the author of five books: The Worst Street In London, London's Docklands, London's Labyrinth, Streets Of Sin, and The Oldest House In London.
A regular contributor to television and radio programmes, Fiona also has her own company, House Histories, which specialises in researching the history of people's homes. She holds an Advanced Diploma in Local History from the University of Oxford.
This fascinating doorstopper of a book contains more than 500 photographs of buildings that have long since disappeared from London’s streets. It provides a tantalising glimpse of the city that our ancestors knew and carries me off on a time travelling adventure every time I look through it.
A spectacular presentation of photographs of Tudor, Georgian and Victorian buildings captured just before their destruction - most seen here for the first time. "This endlessly absorbing book that is at once a record of destruction, a haunting collection of relics, and a door into the past." - John Carey, The Sunday Times.
"Each picture contains a novel in this deeply moving, unforgettable book." - Duncan Fallowell, Daily Express. "A magical book about the capital's past." - Sunday Times.
I’m fascinated by the Victorians – and I’ve spent most of my career trying to understand them – because they’re so like us and so unlike us in many ways. They’re familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I’m a historian of science, and I’m passionate about trying to understand why we think about the world – and about science – the way we do. I think it started with the Victorians, so understanding them really matters and getting it right rather than repeating the same old stories. I hope these books will help you put the Victorians in their place the way they helped me.
I think this is just such a fantastic book. It blows away the whole idea that the Victorians were prudes, embarrassed about anything to do with sex. If you really don’t want to know what your great great grandparents got up to in the bedroom, then stay away from this book.
I really like the way Fern Riddell tells her story, too. Each chapter has a different fictional character to take you though the story. I think its really original – and you’ll never think about the Victorians the same way again.
An exciting factual romp through sexual desire, practises and deviance in the Victorian era. The Victorian Guide to Sex will reveal advice and ideas on sexuality from the Victorian period. Drawing on both satirical and real life events from the period, it explores every facet of sexuality that the Victorians encountered. Reproducing original advertisements and letters, with extracts taken from memoirs, legal cases, newspaper advice columns, and collections held in the Museum of London and the British Museum, this book lifts the veil from historical sexual attitudes.
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…
I left my hometown of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, at age 18 to attend university in Manhattan, where I started my career in journalism and the media. Since then, I’ve lived in Berlin, Germany; Hong Kong; and now Copenhagen, Denmark, generally moving to advance my career and explore new worlds. Whenever you move to a new place and establish yourself in a new culture, there’s always a learning curve. Helping other women (and men!) adapt to their new environment is why I started the “How to Live in Denmark” podcast, which has now been running for more than 10 years.
One of the reasons I like this book is because the author is a man writing about a woman’s inner thoughts and, unusually, doing a very good job.
The time and place: London, the 1890s. Single women are known as “the odd women,” the leftovers. Dr. Rhoda Nunn starts a school to train these women in secretarial skills (back then, most secretaries were men) so that they won’t be dependent on relatives or forced into unhappy marriages. Rhoda herself is proudly unmarried and independent – until she meets an absolutely wonderful man. Will she give up her advocacy for “odd women” and marry the man she loves?
(Warning: this book is out of copyright, so shoddy rip-offs are being sold on Amazon. Make sure you get a legit copy.)
`there are half a million more women than men in this unhappy country of ours . . . So many odd women - no making a pair with them.'
The idea of the superfluity of unmarried women was one the `New Woman' novels of the 1890s sought to challenge. But in The Odd Women (1893) Gissing satirizes the prevailing literary image of the `New Woman' and makes the point that unmarried women were generally viewed less as noble and romantic figures than as `odd' and marginal in relation to the ideal of womanhood itself. Set in grimy, fog-ridden London, these…
