Various Python (& Other) Book Recommendations
By jjm
A few years ago (2021), one of my colleagues asked for some recommendations for Python books to reading, so a looked back over my library and made some notes to share over Slack with him. This weekend I happened to stumble across my notes this weekend and then had a question today about my view on different Python book. So that’s spawned me on to do said write up, these are likely books I’ve read between about 2015 and 2021. Before than I was mostly reading Networking topics (mainly Cisco certification) and since then it’s mostly been on the topics of SCRUM, Agile & Engineering Management.
Python Books
It turned out that I had read quite a few Python books over these 6 years!
Fluent Python - Luciano Ramalho 1
I found this one rather good, made me think some about how I structured my code. It’s really should be on my re-read list (still).
Test-Driven Python Development - Siddharta Govindaraj 2
Found this one a little hard going, as the examples it gave me were did not really grip me that much…
Think Python - Allen B. Downey 3
I read this back in 2016, so a only a little time after I made switch from Networking into full time automation & DevOps. It starts out basic, and gets more complex. It’s written by the co-author of Think Java.
How to Make Mistakes in Python - Mike Pirnat 4
A free at the time ebook from O’reilly, so could hard to find now.
Python testing with pytest - Brian Okken 5
This was rather good, way better than Test-Driven Python Development. Was my main introduction to pytest. Which is so much better than Test-Driven Python Development2.
There is also Python Testing with pytest, Second Edition: Simple, Rapid, Effective, and Scalable by Brian Okken, but I never got round to reading (or buying?) it.
Practices of the Python Pro - Dane Hillard 6
I think this one was good. I read it at the start of Lockdown (2020), so likely I had other things on my mind.
Flask Web Development 7
Seems I read this in 2019/2020 & totally slipped my mind. Guess that says something about the book! Thinking about it this may have been down to the approach it was more about web apps than APIs.
Update: Now I’ve done more Flask development (both AWS Lambda’s & running in k8s), I may now get a little more out of this.
Other Books
These are some books that I tend to recommend often when ever I get a chance. There’s always the various SRE books from Google too!
The Phoenix Project - Gene Kim 8
Reach this after seeing Gene Kim talk at DevOps Days London back in 2015, I think HP gave every attendee a copy. I’ve found it very useful and contains some very good similes. Now I’ve also re-read it a couple of times and plan to do some again.
There’s also a follow-on book The Unicorn Project 9, which I didn’t find quite so useful tho. The retelling from a different viewpoint was too useful for me.
The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right 10
I can’t recommend this book highly enough! A very good book to reach even if your not in the SRE/DevOps space. It’s book about medical checklist, it’s recommended reading on nursing courses and a suggested text in the SRE books too I think.
Turn this ship around 11
This was recommended by an old colleague (Thanks AK!), well worth reading about the ideals of empowerment.
Running HashiCorp Vault in Production 12
A good one for understanding Vault and running it, I read this while prepping for the Vault exam.