As an IT Pro you read a lot, most of the time it’s boring stuff like manuals and technical articles. So when you have some time left, why don’t read a tech-related fictional or non-fictional book to put your mind at rest?
These days there are many good tech-related books, for example about the big tech companies and the people behind it. Or some fiction books about the future we are heading into with all the digital technology that we have. In my list of Best Tech books for 2019, I also put in a programming book, because I love to tinker around with home automation stuff and PowerShell.
To save you some time you will find here below a list of the 5 Best Tech / IT related books of 2018 that I am going to read this year.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
One of the best reads on Elon Musk so far (and the only one where he participated in himself). The author, Vance, is an excellent writer. You may know him from Bloomberg Business or other high profile writing. The books give you a broad and complete picture of Elon Musk as a driven visionary that sets some of the most aspirational goals of any human in history.
It starts with the story about Elon’s early companies and evolves to the current companies (Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity). Overall great storytelling and a really good book to read.
PowerShell: Your PowerShell AND Arduino Guidebook
A well written two book bundle about PowerShell and Arduino. 
If you are starting with PowerShell and/or have little knowledge of it, this is a good starting point that you should read. It’s a great resource that goes into the fundamentals of PowerShell like, filtering and formatting PowerShell and variables inside your scripts.
The second part of this books goes into Arduino Software and how you can use PowerShell with it. A comprehensive guide on starting your own Arduino projects.
The Industries of the Future
Leading innovation Expert Alec Ross provides a “lucid and informed guide” (Financial Times) of what’s next for the world to come. Alex Ross has traveled the world as a Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Secretary of State and explored the latest changes coming out of every continent, including cybercrime and security, robotics and the next steps for big data.
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
A “fascinating” (Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times) look at how digital technology is transforming our work and our lives.
In this book Brynjolfsson and McAfee argue that as technology advances exponentially and is taking us into a new era where we can expect more products and services for lower prices. This is the good part of the new era, the bad side it’s taking over more and more jobs and technology will increase the inequality.
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google
“The Four” tells you about the secrets behind the enormous growth and power of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. Scott Galloway is one the smartest and entertaining observes and he asks the fundamental questions, how did the Giants infiltrate in our lives and how come we almost can’t avoid them anymore.
The only competition the Four faces are from each other and the race is on between them.
