Simon Willison’s Weblog

Subscribe

17 items tagged “books”

2019

goodreads-to-sqlite (via) This is so cool! Tobias Kunze built a Python CLI tool to import your Goodreads data into a SQLite database, inspired by github-to-sqlite and my various other Dogsheep tools. It’s the first Dogsheep style tool I’ve seen that wasn’t built by me—and Tobias’ write-up includes some neat examples of queries you can run against your Goodreads data. I’ve now started using Goodreads and I’m importing my books into my own private Dogsheep Datasette instance. # 14th October 2019, 4:07 am

2016

Good travel book for recently retired man?

The new Atlas Obscura coffee table book is worth a look.

[... 25 words]

Lovecraft-inspired fiction and cookbooks (unrelated!)

Have you considered the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross? They are novels about a secret UK government department which fights off lovecraftian threats while suffering through the typical burucracry you would expect from the UK government.

[... 49 words]

2013

What are the best books/tutorials to begin learning about memcached?

There isn’t really enough of memcached to justify a whole book—it’s a pretty straight-forward API.

[... 100 words]

2010

What are some good book discovery and recommendation sites?

I really like http://readernaut.com/—here’s an example profile: http://readernaut.com/nathan/

[... 27 words]

2009

Dive Into HTML 5. Mark Pilgrim’s free online book on HTML 5—currently just one chapter on canvas (which neatly illustrates the coordinate system using a diagram rendered using canvas itself) but certain to become an invaluable resource for anyone looking to take advantage of HTML 5. # 20th August 2009, 2:40 pm

Ask MetaFilter’s best introductory books. Part of Phil Gyford’s ongoing quest to “learn about everything”, a list of the best introductory books to a wide range of topics collated from a thread on Ask MetaFilter. # 12th May 2009, 11:23 am

Almost Perfect (via) W. E. Peterson’s book on the rise and fall of WordPerfect Corporation, originally published in 1994 and now available for free online. # 5th April 2009, 7:30 pm

Introduction to Information Retrieval (via) This looks excellent—a modern guide to implementing search engines written by some of the engineers behind Yahoo! Search. The full text is available online, but it looks like it’s well worth investing in the dead tree edition. # 9th February 2009, 8:54 pm

2008

JavaScript: The Good Parts. Douglas Crockford’s soon-to-be-published book on the subset of JavaScript that he recommends. Promises to be “short, but dense”—if it’s half as good as his JavaScript lectures this is going to be a must-have. # 19th April 2008, 4:38 pm

The Principles Of Project Management (via) Meri’s book has been published by SitePoint. # 26th March 2008, 12:12 pm

The Art & Science of JavaScript. The JavaScript book I contributed to is now shipping! My chapter describes how to build a Flickr / Google Maps mashup entirely using client-side code (via JSON-P). # 12th January 2008, 7:05 pm

2007

“The Definitive Guide to Django” is now shipping from Amazon. The book looks absolutely fantastic (bias disclosure: I contributed the newforms chapter)—huge congratulations to Adrian and Jacob. # 11th December 2007, 9:12 pm

Professional Python Frameworks: Web 2.0 Programming with Django and Turbogears. Apparently published by Wrox in October 2007, beating the “official” Django book by just over a month. Has anyone seen this on bookshelves yet? # 16th November 2007, 9:16 pm

Roy Orbison in Cling-film, the novel. If you missed the original internet meme you might be a bit baffled by this one, but I picked up a copy of the novel today and it completely lives up to the standard set by the short stories. # 17th October 2007, 3:58 pm

The Art & Science of JavaScript. My first author credit: I’m contributing a chapter to SitePoint’s next JavaScript tome. # 15th October 2007, 10:35 pm

Programming Erlang. A book on Erlang from the creator of the language himself, out in July but available to buy now as a beta PDF. # 3rd March 2007, 8:49 am