At Agile Coach Camp Germany 2010, Marc Bless walked around and asked participants: which one book should I read. The result was this list.

As I liked this idea a lot, I did the same at Agile 2010. Only I did not say “what is the one book I should read.” Actually I asked people to give me one name of a book to put on the list. Some people asked me what the list was for (suprisingly not everyone) I gave a diversity of answers to that question (hoping for a diversity in books).

These were some of the answers I gave:

– the one book that I should read
– the one book that everyone in agile should have read
– the one book that changed your life
– the book you think is missing in this list
– …

I only had 2 rules:

– Only one book
– It can’t be on the list already

This is the list they put together:

• Gerald Weinberg: The psychology of Computer programming Recommended by JB Rainsberger
• Michael Feathers: Working effectively with Legacy code Recommended by Dave Nicolette
• Donald Reinertsen: The principles of Product Development Flow Recommended by Karl Scotland
• Stephan Erikson: Gardens of the Moon Recommended by Arlo Belshee
• Dietrich Dörner: The logic of failure Recommended by Laurent Bossavit
• Steven Gary Blank: Four Steps to epiphany Recommended by Aleksey Kolupaev
• Dan Roam: The Back of a Napkin Recommended by Nataliya Trenina
• Dan Heath & Chip Heath Made to Stick Recommended by Arto Eskelinen
• Keith Johnstone: Impro Recommended by Sami Honkonen
• Robert Austin: Artful Making Recommended by Patrick Wilson-Welsh
• Linda Rising: Fearless Change
• Donald Reinertsen: Developing Products in half the time Recommended by Brad Swanson
• Frederick Brooks: Mythical Man Month Recommended by Dave Thomas
• Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert I. Sutton Hard Facts, half-truths and total nonsense Recommended by Esther Derby
• Daniel Pink: Drive Recommended by Mary Poppendieck
• Tom De Marco: Slack: Getting past Burnout, Busywork and the myth of total efficiency Recommended by George Dinwiddie
• William Ury: The Power of a Positive NO Recommended by Michele Sliger
• Gojko Adzic: Briding the communication Gap Recommended by Janet Gregory
• Gerald Weinberg: The Secrets of consulting Recommended by Joshua Kerievsky
• Atul Gawande: The Checklist Manifesto Recommended by David Hussman
• Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen Recommended by Jurgen Appelo
• Robert Fisher Le Chevalier a l’armure rouilléé Recommended by François Beauregard
• John Shook: Managing to learn Recommended by Tom Poppendieck
• Jonah Lehrer: How we decide Recommended by Bob Payne
• Benjamin Zander: The art of possibility Recommended by Christophe Thibaut
• Perkins, Holtman, Kessler, Mccarthy Leading at the edge: leadership lessons from the extraordinary saga of shackleton’s Antartic Expedition Recommended by Gino Marckx
• Norman Kerth: Project Retrospectives Recommended by Jutta Eckstein
• Robert Heinlein: Stranger in a strange land Recommended by Johanna Rothman
• Malcom Gladdwell Outliers Recommended by Gerry Kirk
• Kathleen D Ryan: Extraordinary Groups Recommended by Diana Larson
• Anne Lamott: Bird by Bird Recommended by Lisa Crispin
• James Shore: The Art of Agile Development Recommended by Bonnie Aumann

When I write this blog post, I am very happy about the list, it contains a lot of books I like, it contains books I have sitting on my shelve waiting to read and it contains books I did not know  and look promissing…

And that while I found three book at my clients office today that should have arrived before my holiday and a kindle 3 on his  way to become mine, life is good…

Update: Thanks to JB’s comment  I now have a nicer view to these books: