Many of us are challenging ourselves to grow in the new year. One area of growth I strive for is in my career as a software developer. To that end, I’m sharing my 2018 reading challenge. I hope you will find it stretches your technical ability.

How it works

• Choose a reading goal early in the year and set your pace accordingly.
  • The beginner reading challenge is 1 book a quarter.
  • The advanced reading challenge is 1 book a month with 2 months off.
• Choose the books and read them in any order, checking them off as you complete them.
• Post about your progress on Twitter using the hashtag #2018TechReadingChallenge. (Cross-post on Slack too)

Ideas

• Define your definition of “read,” since some technical books are pretty dry if you try to read them from cover to cover.
• Ignore the categories and use #2018TechReadingChallenge about any software development book you read this year.

2018 Reading challenge (beginner—4 books)

• A book about unit testing
• A book about a framework, tool, or language
• A book recommended by a coworker
• A book published in 2018

2018 Reading challenge (advanced—10 books)

• All the books in the beginner list plus:
• A book about leadership
• A book about an abstract concept
• A book about software architecture
• A book about agile
• A book from the 80s
• A book with an animal on the cover