I've been on a bit of a reading kick lately. First was the Shady Characters book I mentioned here the other day, then Cloud Atlas (an incredible story, in my opinion), and now I'm making my way through Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Mr. Penumbra's tells the story about a young web designer who loses his job thanks to the recession of the…
If you fancy yourself an etymologist, then I'm guessing you're already an expert on the origins of many words. But what about the ampersand (&)? The pilcrow (¶)? Or even the octothorpe (#)? Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston is a book that uncovers the origin stories of several punctuation marks, from common…
Mattt Thompson is the voice behind NSHipster, a weekly journal about aspects of Objective-C and Cocoa you've probably never heard of. It's an awesome resource of useful tips, with a great mix of developer-talk and humor. Thompson is taking articles from NSHipster, along with over a dozen new essays, and combining them into a book titled NSHipster: Obscure Topics in Cocoa &…
Patrick Rhone's excellent guide to becoming a Mac consultant (which we mentioned a while back) is now available in audiobook form. As with the text version, this audiobook will occasionally undergo revisions and additions, with new editions of the book being sent out to all customers. And just like the text version, the audiobook is only $5.
Just Enough Research is the latest book to come from the ever-excellent A Book Apart publishing group. Written by Mule co-founder Erika Hall, Just Enough Research delves into the nitty-gritty of doing excellent research for your projects, whether they be design-related or otherwise. Erika has been doing this kind of thing for many years, making her a foremost expert on the matter.…
Written by our fearless editor Shawn Blanc, Delight is in the Details is an audio book, eBook, and interview series for people who make things. The focus is on addressing the finest goal a person in our industry can have: to create substantive work that delights and excites our audience. To that end, this book bundle contains eight audio interviews with such…
John Carey runs two of my favorite photo blogs on the internet: the ever-popular Fifty Foot Shadows and the less-known but equally-good Yesterday Was Only. The latter is a project wherein John posts lovely photographs pretty much every day, and he compiles each month's photos into a book. Each volume – priced between $13 and $16 – is a perfect coffee table…
The Zeitgeisty Books Bundle is a collection of books about making things and being awesome while you do it. Featured writers include Robin Sloan, Disrupto's Jack Cheng, Minimal Mac's Patrick Rhone, Justin Sirois, game designer Ian Bogost, and Bryan Young. The bundle is "pay what you want," but paying over $10 unlocks four additional books. All of the books are DRM-free, and…
The Shape of Design by Frank Chimero is a fantastic book that examines the world of design, and the role of designers that inhabit it. This isn't a guide to making websites look great, or a how-to on making apps. Chimero encourages the reader to think about the why behind great design, not the how. There are fantastic quotes and illustrations sprinkled…
Learning iOS Design is a book written by William van Hecke, the User Experience Lead at the Omni Group (the makers of OmniFocus and other well-known apps). In this book, William takes you through the process of becoming an iOS app designer, regardless of your experience level. You'll learn how to flesh out your app ideas, from early sketches and wireframes to…
The latest in the Field Notes 'Colors' lineup is the gorgeous Night Sky edition. On the back cover you'll find a set of constellations – including Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Pegasus, Ursa Major/Minor, Draco, Boötes, Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila – with each cover featuring a different group. These are some of the most attractive Field Notes I've ever seen, but maybe I'm a little…
We live in an age when more and more people are making the attempt to become full-time independent writers on the web, myself included. Shawn Blanc, the editor of this site, has already managed to achieve this lofty goal and is quite successful as far as I know, but most of us are still figuring out how to do the same. This…
CreatureBox, who I discovered through Instagram a while back, is the art studio behind the Ratchet & Clank video game series. I absolutely love their artwork (clearly inspired by Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes), which is why I'm super excited that they've collected a bunch of it into something they call The Monster Volume. If you like comic book-style…
The Mythical Man-Month is the book when it comes to software project management. In its nearly 20 years in print, it has defined how good managers approach not only software development, but all sorts of projects. In fact, over 250,000 copies are in print. The 2nd Edition new material, including a retrospective, additional papers and more. You can pick up the paperback…
Learning to Love Evernote is a series of screencasts by Bradley Chambers that have been gathered into an iBook for iPad. The videos are geared toward people who want to use Evernote, but haven't quite figured out how to fit it into their workflow yet. It first covers the basics of the Evernote interface (notebooks, stacks, etc) and then shows you different…
One of my favorite tech writers on the web, Patrick Rhone, recently released Apple Consulting - A Minimal Guide. This project started out as a simple blog post detailing how one can make a career out of being a Mac Consultant to individuals and/or small organizations, and after initial interest exploded, it has grown into a full-blown ebook that is being updated…
I like to joke that my approach to editing CSS goes something like this: Right-click, 'Inspect Element' Find the appropriate selector Mash the keyboard until it works Needless to say, I can always use a little help when it comes to web design. This book, written by Jon Duckett, is a great resource for such knowledge. There's nothing contained within it that…
I'm a big fan of Andrew Kim's blog, Minimally Minimal (you may know him from his awesome rebranding concept for Microsoft). He's a product designer who not only showcases his own work, but also likes to post reviews of all kinds of products, always with a focus on minimalism, function, and beauty. Every review is chock full of beautiful photography, where his…
David Sparks, also known on the web as MacSparky, has added a new edition to his Field Guides series, this one focusing on Markdown (which is an excellent writing syntax for the web, for those of you not already familiar with it). It aims to get a complete beginner up-to-speed on Markdown, then ventures into some pretty advanced territory, so there should…
With Apple's insane success and popularity in the recent years, there are throngs of Apple customers that aren't aware how the company — or it's products — were started. Revolution in the Valley, by Andy Hertzfield is a look at how the Macintosh came to be. The book traces the skunkworks project from 1979 until 1984, when the Macintosh went on sale for the…