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I've been running my personal blog since the end of 2016 and starting from mid-2017, I've been posting at least one article almost every week. My blog has not and does not have one single topic, I mostly write about C++, sometimes about career development, management or how Stoicism can be applied to our craft and I write about books.
I write a lot about books.
All these different kinds of articles are on my blog and featured in my newsletter.
This is not optimal if I want to engage a lot of people. Some consider the book reviews as spam, others the C++ content, yet others will find articles on Stoicism spammy. But after all, it's all part of me, I'm a diverse person and all are on my personal blog and that's just fine.
At the same time, books are so important to me that I'd like to help people more in recommending good books. I got addicted to reading during university and it helped me to calm down in times of stress. I always had a book with me, that's how I didn't really mind living in the suburbs. While on public transport, I read anyways. If my friends were late from the pubs, I read. A few years later, after a long day at work, in order to wind down, I read, read, read.
Being an avid reader for almost two decades, I learnt that finding the next books to read is not always simple, especially if you are interested in multiple fields. You cannot just simply follow up on the recommended books of the last book you read. I think it's even more difficult in software development. There are many languages, different practices like TDD, design patterns, you can be a frontend developer, backend developer and list goes on and on and on and on and on...
Hence I created a new site DevReads.sandordargo.com, where I share all my book reviews and I also created a dedicated newsletter.
If you subscribe, you'll get a monthly newsletter featuring the latest book reviews posted on DevReads. The books are mostly about software development and most of the books - not all, I admit - are language agnostic. I prefer books that help you become a better software engineer, not just a better C++ programmer, though there are some language-specific book that are terrific and you must read if you work with that language.
As mentioned, most of the books are development related, but not all of them. I strongly believe that one of the best things you can do in your free time is reading. Not the freshest scandals, not the latest news on political events, but eternal books. Books that are timeless, books that give you wisdom, books that help you become the best version of yourself.
As I already spend every day about an hour and a half on reading books, taking notes and later summarizing them so that I can retain the best ideas, it's not a big extra effort on my side to share them with you and to share them in a targeted way.
While I'm a backend developer, setting up a basic static webpage has become a relatively simple task, so it's not even a big investment on my side. In fact, that's why I only use a subdomain of my website, all that I want is to share my experience with the books I read.
The newsletter is completely free, there are no tricks, no paid parts. At the same time, I should mention that I use Amazon affiliate links like this one. If you buy something, I get a commission while you pay the same amount. I think that's okay and with the help of these commissions, I can buy more books and deliver more content.
In case, you are also a bookworm and you're looking for some recommendations, sign up here for the monthly newsletter to get the best books for software developers (not only about software development).
Happy reading!
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