[Gllug] Recommended Books

[Russell Howe]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 10:25:23PM +0000, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> 	1) Applied Cryptography - another definitive text.

This I haven't read (I know, I know...) but I did pick up a copy of
"Modern Cryptography: Theory and Practice" by Wenbo Mao last time I
was in China for 69 yuan (about £4.81) and I find it very good. Quite
mathematical, and my maths is weak, but I don't see how you can have a
non-mathematical crypto book...

The maths in it is fairly well explained, anyway, if you take the time
to sit and study it.

The book doesn't just cover various algorithms and protocols, but also
various pitfalls you can fall victim to when implementing them.

All in all, a book I would reccommend, although I suspect the cover
price here to be somewhat higher... :)

DNS & BIND is another indispensable book IMHO, for anyone who has to
admin or implement DNS (even if you don't use BIND, it's still worth
having).

I also have a copy of "Designing Large Scale LANs" by Kevin Dooley,
published by O'Reilly. Cover price 105 yuan (~£7.33). Some of it is
fairly obvious, and some of it I don't really agree with, but on the
whole, a book anyone building or maintaining a large network should
read.

Hm, I should probably include a programming book.. getting a bit
outdated now, unless it's been updated for changes in the Servlet spec
and the addition of JSTL, but "Core Servlets & JavaServer Pages" by
Marty Hall I found to be a very easy and clear read, and very useful
when starting out with Java Servlet stuff. The index is a bit lacking,
which lets it down as a reference, though.

My last suggestions aren't exactly IT related, but one is indispensable
and the other was a damn fine read, I thought.

"The Dilbert Principle" by Scott Adams, a must for surviving any
business environment. I showed it to my mum and within a week there were
Dilbert cartoons all over the Borough Council offices.

The last one would be "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami
(or Murakami Haruki, depending on your primary language, I guess). Can't
really say why, but I quite love that book. It's a bit odd.

PS The books bought in China have Chinese covers, but the text inside is
all English - I can't read Chinese... yet :)

-- 
Russell Howe       | Why be just another cog in the machine,
rhowe at siksai.co.uk | when you can be the spanner in the works?
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