Who, what, when, where and why

What we are reading in Sourcefabric

At the beginning of January, Mark Zuckerberg declared 2015 to be the “Year of Books”.  He committed himself to reading a new book every two weeks while discussing it on a Facebook community page, which you can find here. The books being read should have “an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies”.

This inspired us to do a fun experiment and reach out to our colleagues to see what they were reading in their spare time, when not coding, implementing or managing the company. We in Sourcefabric are a group of a people with very different backgrounds, roles, and interests. Additionally, we are spread literally all over the world, so we thought it might be interesting to inspire each other and maybe inspire you, too. 

The process was very simple, we asked our colleagues just two questions:

1. What are you reading right now

2. Why would you recommend it to someone?

Here are the results we got. You can click through the book covers to get to their Amazon.com listing, read their reviews and ultimately purchase them.

Pete Haughie, Innovations

1. William Gibson: The Peripheral

2. Gibson is the master of cyberpunk science fiction. Everybody laughed at him for not predicting the mobile phone back when he wrote The Sprawl trilogy in the 80s but his predictions about online safety and security as well as the invasive nature of Big Brother society are truer, and scarier, now than they’ve ever been. I genuinely love his easy use of made up slang as well.

Adrian Magdas, Superdesk Developer

1. Andy Weir: The Martian

2. You  know, how to survive on Mars should come useful in the near future...

Eva Dangendorf, Project Manager

1. Francine Jay: The joy of less - A minimalist living guide

2. Some excellent reviews are available here. Great book!

Emma Van Sant, Communications Manager

1. Bryan Stevenson: Just Mercy

2. This book is an immensely important expose on the prevalence of racial bias within the criminal justice system in the United States. While it is incredibly tough (emotionally) to read at some points, the lessons we can all take from it are invaluable.“We will ultimately not be judged by our technology, we won’t be judged by our design, we won’t be judged by our intellect and reason. Ultimately, you judge the character of a society . . . by how they treat the poor, the condemned, the incarcerated.” - Bryan Stevenson. 

 Edouard Richard, Developer

1. Albert Sànchez Piñol:Victus: Barcelone 1714

2. The book is about the Spain War and it resonates with our epoch, when the Catalan wants to be independent. This book dives you into the period between preparation and the end of the Barcelona siege. You will discover the madness of the war from the point of view of both armies and the long history of Catalan. 

 Fabienne Riener, COO

1. Haruki Murikami: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

2. It’s for anybody, who has ever felt haunted by unfinished business from the past. It’s especially for those who need some encouragement to go and face those old ghosts. Spoiler Alert: The journey, however painful, is worth it. 

   

   Haruki Murikami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

 Mikayel, QA Lead

1. Charles Duhigg: The power of Habit

2. It’s a bestseller about our inner layers and the ways on how to manage those efficiently.

Ljuba Ranković, Implementations

1. Paul Bertolli: Cooking by Hand

2. It's not just another recipes cookbook - passion for cooking, exploration of the pure essence of the ingredients…inspiring and educational.

 Magdalena Klein, Communications Manager

1. Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow

2. This books give a fascinating insight into the way people think, make decisions and even think about their thinking. Highly recommended to anyone interested in contemporary research in psychology and neurosciences. It contains a lot of examples and is suitable for anyone trying to prevent themselves from falling into cognitive bias and also anyone interested in preventing making mistakes in their decision-making.

Have you read any of the books above? If so, what do you think of them? Are there any interesting book you would like to recommend to us? Then share it with us on our Twitter  or Facebook.