Favorite Books I Read and Reviewed in 2006

2006 was my most productive reading and reviewing year yet. I read and reviewed 17 in 2000, 42 in 2001, 24 in 2002, 33 in 2003, 33 in 2004, 26 in 2005. This year I read and reviewed 52 books. I was determined to make as big a dent as possible in the huge stack of books sent to me by publishers and blog readers, and I made a lot of progress.

My ratings yielded the following:

  • 1 star: 0 books
  • 2 stars: 1 book
  • 3 stars: 9 books
  • 4 stars: 29 books
  • 5 stars: 13 books
Because I don't try to read every book, I'm glad my ratings are skewed towards the higher end. I don't intentionally read books I expect to be bad.

I thought I would list the 13 books that I gave five stars, starting with my favorite and working down.

  1. 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Ed by Matthew S Gast: A first-rate technical book that dispels myths by speaking authoritatively and comprehensively.
  2. Running IPv6 by Iljitsch-van-Beijnum: A close second, this book nicely describes IPv6 in a practical manner.
  3. Protect Your Windows Network by Jesper M. Johansson and Steve Riley: Yes, really -- a "Windows" book! This book is amazing because the security principles within apply to any platform.
  4. The Debian System by Martin F. Krafft: I would love to see a book like this written for FreeBSD.
  5. PGP-GPG by Michael Lucas: This book should be given to anyone who needs to use PGP or GPG, before they create their first key!
  6. IPv6 Essentials, 2nd Ed by Sylvia Hagen: This book is the perfect companion for the previous IPv6 book, because this title is mostly IPv6 formats and theory.
  7. Software Security by Gary McGraw: Of the six books I read this year on building secure software, this was my favorite and the only five-star recipient.
  8. Hacking Exposed: Web Applications, 2nd Ed by Mike Shema, Joel Scambray, and Caleb Sima: I liked this book because it is a thorough update of the 1st Ed, and it covers the subject very well. It still won't win over all you HE-bashers out there. (You know who you are.)
  9. Apache Security by Ivan Ristic: This is the best book on Apache security, and a good introduction to Web attacks as well.
  10. Phishing Exposed by Lance James: I liked this book because it seemed to extend the boundaries of knowledge regarding phishing, and not just rehash old attacks.
  11. File System Forensic Analysis by Brian Carrier: If you do any sort of host-centric forensics, this book is a must-have.
  12. Pro Nagios 2.0 by James Turnbull: The best Nagios book, thus far.
  13. Skype Me! by Michael Gough: Wow, I gave a Skype book five stars? It was very well-written.
So, congratulations to Matthew Gast for being my favorite author of 2006!

I have more than 30 books sitting on my shelf waiting to be read now, and another 40 plus books on my Amazon.com Wish List. I've assigned priority values to the Wish List based on projected publication date. In other words, books that are already on shelves or due soon are rated "Highest." Books arriving next year, for example, are rated "lowest."

If you find my reviews helpful, please rate them as such at Amazon.com. I look forward to hitting the 4000 mark for "Helpful Votes" in 2007. I hit 1500 three years ago and 3000 at the beginning of 2006. Since I am not paid for my reviews I appreciate any indication that they are helpful. Thank you.

Comments

Anonymous said…
That's a lot of reviews! It took me a while, but I just finished putting together a list of all the books I read in 2006: all 110 of them! (Although I didn't do reviews for mine.) This is more than double what I read in 2005, due to various factors (explained in more detail in the post). They're broken down into categories, and I denoted the ones that I liked the best. :)

http://www.zandria.us/archives/000925.htmlh
1:41 PM
Anonymous said…
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7:32 AM
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