I seem to collect a number of books each year. A few of the books I receive from publishers with intent to review or as appreciation for my involvement with events related to content management systems. Other books just peak my interest so I can't help but buy them for my personal library. The following are five books I plan to read in 2009 and are available in CMS Report's Amazon Store.
Drupal Multimedia by Aaron Windborn
Users loading Drupal for the first time usually have two surprises. The first surprise is that Drupal's core lacks a rich text editor (no WYSIWYG). Although you can use a RTE via a contributed module...it is still a surprise to most new users. The second surprise is that the core also doesn't provide much support for images and other forms of multimedia. This book will help the reader navigate through many of the contributed media modules available at Drupal.org and pick the right one for the right project. I'm only half way through the book and finding myself trying out modules I likely would never have used without this book.
Expert Python Programming by Tarek Ziadé
I haven't bought a new Python book since 2001 and felt it was time to try another. I'm more of a dabbler than a programmer, but it is always good to have reference books like these nearby.
Expert Python Programming shows how Python development should be done with best practices and expert design tips. This book is for Python developers who are already building applications, but want to build better ones by applying best practices and new development techniques to their projects. The reader is expected to have a sound background in Python programming.
Using Drupal by By Angela Byron, Addison Berry, Nathan Haug, Jeff Eaton, James Walker, Jeff Robbins
This Drupal books is supposed to be really good. Needless to say, I was disappointed that I wasn't sent this book for free so I could review it. Like the rest of you, it looks like I'll be paying for this book. That's alright though because every author in this book are strong contributors in the open source Drupal community. There is a lot to be learned from these Drupal masters.
With the recipes in this book, you can take full advantage of the vast collection of community-contributed modules that make the Drupal web framework useful and unique. You'll get the information you need about how to combine modules in interesting ways (with a minimum of code-wrangling) to develop a variety of community-driven websites. Each chapter describes a case study and outlines specific requirements for one of several projects included in the book -- a wiki, publishing workflow site, photo gallery, product review site, online store, user group site, and more.
My expectation is that I'll be just as impressed with Using Drupal as I was when I first read Pro Drupal Development.
MediaWiki Skins Design by Richard Carter
Let's face it, when you have seen one mediaWiki site you have seen them all. Not many people spend much time changing the appearance of their Wiki. However, if you use a wiki day in and day out for work or community...you start wishing for some changes to the site. I'm hoping this book will help me make some slight but needed changes with our mediaWiki pages at work.
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (cowritten with Jeffrey Zaslow)
Randy Pausch is the computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This book is based on his last lecture given to his students but written for his family. I've made it a habit of mine to read one chapter a night before I go to bed. This book inspires the living just as much as it inspires the dying. If you have no desire to read the book then do yourself a favor and at least watch the video.