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The top books tech people should read during the summer holiday

Finally, it’s time for the summer vacation? Great, but you can mix pleasure with something practical. Like reading some of the top books for tech people.

Computerworld has polled IT pros in various positions to find out what books they are reading right now. It has also asked them which are their top best reads for techies of all-time. We’ve also added a few additional picks by some of the biggest names in the business.

Most of them are available in digital form. So, you can get them on your device and read them while you are resting on the beach. A great way to up your skills while you are relaxing.

The books tech people should read

Bask Iyer, CIO at VMware recommends Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” and “How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed” by Ray Kurzweil.

Greg Greenlee, founder of Blacks In Technology recommends “Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning” by Peter C. Brown and “In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives” by Steven Levy.

Kaitlyn Hova, cofounder of The Hovalin recommends “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck. “This book is incredibly thoughtful about failure and learning, and explains how you might be putting unnecessary constraints on yourself”, she says.

Michael Jenkins, senior Linux engineer at United Business Media is going even deeper. He recommends “Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes”, by, you guessed it, Amazon. This one is especially useful for tech people who want to get more involved with the cloud.

Zassmin Montes de Oca recommends “Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age” by Paul Graham for which she says made her fall in love with programming.

Mike Venerra, CIO and SVP of informatics recommends “How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking” by Jordan Ellenberg. For him math is critical to business.

Matt Willmore, mobileND program manager at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, has a different approach. He recommends choosing a book which is tangential to your like of work.

Bill Gates recommends “How to Lie With Statistics” by Darrel Huff.

Mark Zuckerberg recommends “The Idea Factory” by Jon Gertner.

Larry Page recommends “My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla” by Nikola Tesla.

Jeff Bezos recommends “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies” by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras.

Tim Cook recommends “Competing Against Time” by George Stalk. He loves the book so much, he gives out copies of it to colleagues.

Image credit: Flickr (CC) / Josué Goge