I have a nice collection of ebooks in my ebook readers Kindle Voyage and Kobo Aura One. I have also some paperbacks in my bookshelf.
I have either read these (e)books in last couple of years or plan to read them in upcoming months. I thought that I share the most important part of this list with awesome Sitecore Dev Community. It could help newcomers with orientation and suggest them what to read to get them up to speed with Sitecore. This list will also help advanced Sitecore Developers to fill their gap in or deepen their knowledge and maybe they will find interesting books they have by some mistake missed out so far.
I am neither a front-end developer nor full-stack developer anymore. From bottom of my heart I am pure Sitecore back-end developer, architect and consultant so expect books that are appealing for similar audience. However all books (except perhaps the ones in chapter 3) are targeted to broader audience not just back-end developers 🙂
I already shared similar list last year but I have revised this list for year 2019 🙂
What types of books you can find in this blog post:
- Sitecore Development
- Software Craftmanship / Software Engineering
- ASP.NET / C# / .NET Software Development
- Sitecore Marketers / Content Administrators
- More books
The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
(Pablo Neruda)
1. Sitecore Development
Professional Sitecore 8 Development: A Complete Guide to Solutions and Best Practice
Description: Front- and back-end developers will utilize this step-by-step guide and comprehensive overview of Sitecore development and best practices to structure templates and content within Sitecore, work with integrated tools, and leverage its extensive automation capabilities.
Written by: Phillip Wicklund and Jason Wilkerson, Published: November 2016
Sitecore Cookbook for Developers: Over 70 incredibly effective and practical recipes to get you up and running with Sitecore development
Description: This book is targeted towards beginner Sitecore developers as well as experienced who want to explore core Sitecore architecture for site development, doing customizations, improving performance, and scalability.
Written By: Yogesh Patel, Published: April 2016
The Little Book of Sitecore Tips: Volume 1
Description: The main purpose of this book is a light-hearted look at some useful Sitecore tips. These tips are targeted at all levels of user but whether you’re recapping or learning, you should find something useful, or at the very least… entertaining.
Written By: Neil Shack, Published: December 2017
The Little Book of Sitecore Tips: Volume 2
Description: Even more Sitecore tips in this latest volume of great little book
Written by: Neil Shack, Published: June 2018
Helix Documentation
Description: After you master basic Sitecore development, next step is to master Sitecore Helix principles. These are must read for all Sitecore developers and architects. Helix is a set of overall design principles and conventions for Sitecore development.
If you are like me and enjoy reading books during commute or traveling, then take a look on Helix documentation that I have compiled for e-readers.
Professional Sitecore Development
Description: Even though this book was published some time ago, core concepts and principles defined in this book are still applicable nowadays. With this book, you will learn how to implement solutions with Sitecore, how the Sitecore architecture enhances the ASP.NET development process, how to use Sitecore’s extensive Application Programming Interfaces, and how to deploy the website.
Written by: John West, Published: May 2012
2. Software Craftmanship / Software Engineering
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
Description: Best agile practices of cleaning code “on the fly” that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman and make you a better programmer—but only if you work at it.
Written by: Robert C. Martin, Published: August 2008
Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
Description: Author introduces the disciplines, techniques, tools, and practices of true software craftsmanship. This book is packed with practical advice–about everything from estimating and coding to refactoring and testing.
Written by: Robert C. Martin, Published: May 2011
Clean Architecture: A Craftsman’s Guide to Software Structure and Design
Description: Author presents the universal rules of software architecture that will help you dramatically improve developer productivity throughout the life of any software system.
Written by: Robert C. Martin, Published: September 2017
The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride
Description: Author helped found the world’s largest organization of software craftsmen; now, he shares what he’s learned through inspiring examples and pragmatic advice you can use in your company, your projects, and your career.
Written by: Sandro Mancuso, Published: December 2014
Principles of Package Design
Description: You will learn everything about designing software components, also known as packages. In the first part you’ll revisit the SOLID principles of class design. They will help you prepare your classes for use in packages. The second part covers the important, yet lesser known package design principles. When you’ve finished this book, you’ll be ready to design packages that have high cohesion, low coupling and are at the same time user- and maintainer-friendly.
Written by: Matthias Noback, Published: March 2015
Building Evolutionary Architectures: Support Constant Change
Description: The software development ecosystem is constantly changing, providing a constant stream of new tools, frameworks, techniques, and paradigms. Over the past few years, incremental developments in core engineering practices for software development have created the foundations for rethinking how architecture changes over time, along with ways to protect important architectural characteristics as it evolves. This practical guide ties those parts together with a new way to think about architecture and time.
Written by: Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons and Patrick Kua, Published: October 2017
Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#
Description: This book presents a series of case studies illustrating the fundamentals of Agile development and Agile design, and moves quickly from UML models to real C# code.
Written by: Robert C. Martin and Micah Martin, Published: July 2006
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
Description: A useful approach to software design and construction that allows for efficient, profitable development of high-quality products. Elements of the approach include specification development, customer relations, team management, design practices, development tools, and testing procedures. This approach is presented with the help of anecdotes and technical problems..
Written by: Andrew Hunt and David Thomas, Published: October 1999
The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
Description: In this book, you’ll learn how to become an entrepreneur, driving your career in the direction of your choosing. You’ll learn how to build your software development career step by step, following the same path that you would follow if you were building, marketing, and selling a product.
Written by: , Published: June 2009
Ry’s Git Tutorial
Description: This comprehensive guide will walk you through the entire Git library, writing code and executing commands every step of the way. You’ll create commits, revert snapshots, navigate branches, communicate with remote repositories, and experience core Git concepts first-hand.
Written by: Ryan Hodson, Published: November 2014
The Imposter’s Handbook
Description: Demonstrates core principles and fundamentals of Computer Science for self-taught developers. Nicely written book with occasional updates / additions from author.
Written by: Rob Conery, Published: November 2016
Computer Science Distilled: Learn the Art of Solving Computational Problems
Description: A walk-through of computer science concepts you must know. Designed for readers who don’t care for academic formalities, it’s a fast and easy computer science guide. It teaches the foundations you need to program computers effectively.
Written by: Wladston Ferreira Filho, Published: January 2017
Patterns Principles and Practices of Domain Driven Design
Description: This book distills the ideas and theories of the Domain-Driven Design (DDD) philosophy into a practical playbook that you can leverage to simplify application development for complex problem domains.
Written by: Scott Millett with Nick Tune, Published: April 2015
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Description: This book describes a set of disciplines, concepts, and attitudes that you will carry with you for the rest of your career and that will help you to turn systems that gradually degrade into systems that gradually improve.
Written by: , Published: October 2004
3. C# / ASP.NET / .NET Software Development
Beginning SOLID Principles and Design Patterns for ASP.NET Developers
Description: This book teaches you all the essential knowledge required to learn and apply time-proven SOLID principles of object-oriented design and important design patterns in ASP.NET 5 (recently renamed ASP.NET Core 1.0) applications. You will learn to write server-side as well as client-side code that makes use of proven practices and patterns.
Written by: Bipin Joshi, Published: April 2016
Adaptive Code: Agile coding with design patterns and SOLID principles (2nd Edition)
Description: Write code that can adapt to changes. By applying this book’s principles, you can create code that accommodates new requirements and unforeseen scenarios without significant rewrites.
Written By: Gary McLean Hall, Published: April 2017
C# in Depth, 4th Edition
Description:Â This book is a revised edition of the bestseller written by C# legend Jon Skeet. This authoritative and engaging guide is your key to unlocking this powerful language, including the new features of C# 6 and 7. In it, Jon introduces expression-bodied members, interpolated strings, pattern matching, and more. Real-world examples drive it all home. By the end of this awesome book, you’ll be writing C# code with skill, style, and confidence.
Written by: John Skeet, Published: March 2019
Pro ASP.NET MVC 5
Description: Best book for learning and practicing ASP.NET MVC 5.
Written by: Adam Freeman, Published: December 2013
Pro ASP.NET Core MVC 2
Description: It contains detailed explanations of the Core MVC functionality which enables developers to produce leaner, cloud optimized and mobile-ready applications for the .NET platform. This book puts ASP.NET Core MVC into context and dives deep into the tools and techniques required to build modern, cloud optimized extensible web applications.
Written by: Adam Freeman, Published: October 2017
Practical Test-Driven Development using C# 7: Unleash the power of TDD by implementing real world examples under .NET environment and JavaScript
Description: You will learn from industry standard patterns and practices, and shift from a conventional approach to a modern and efficient software testing approach in C# and JavaScript. This book starts with the basics of TDD and the components of a simple unit test. By the end of the book, you’ll have all the TDD skills you’ll need and you’ll be able to re-enter the world as a TDD expert.
Written by: John Callaway and Clayton Hunt , Published: February 2018
C# Design Pattern Essentials
Description: This book gives you a step-by-step guide to the world of object-oriented software development, using tried and trusted techniques. The examples and code extracts have been deliberately kept simple, enabling you to concentrate on understanding the concepts and application of each pattern rather than having to wade through irrelevant source code.
Written by: Tony Bevis, Published: November 2012
Pro .NET Memory Management, For Better Code, Performance, and Scalability
Description: Understand .NET memory management internal workings, pitfalls, and techniques in order to effectively avoid a wide range of performance and scalability problems in your software. Despite automatic memory management in .NET, there are many advantages to be found in understanding how .NET memory works and how you can best write software that interacts with it efficiently and effectively. Pro .NET Memory Management is your comprehensive guide to writing better software by understanding and working with memory management in .NET.
Written By: Konrad Kokosa, Published November 2018
Writing High-Performance .NET Code, 2nd Edition
Description: This book does not just teach you how the CLR works—it teaches you exactly what you need to do now to obtain the best performance today. It will expertly guide you through the nuts and bolts of extreme performance optimization in .NET, complete with in-depth examinations of CLR functionality, free tool recommendations and tutorials, useful anecdotes, and step-by-step guides to measure and improve performance.
Written By: Ben Watson, Published April 2018
Building Microservices with ASP.NET Core: Develop, Test, and Deploy Cross-Platform Services in the Cloud
Description: This hands-on guide shows you how to create, test, compile, and deploy microservices, using the ASP.NET Core free and open-source framework. Along the way, you’ll pick up good, practical habits for building powerful and robust services.
Written by: Kevin Hoffman, Published: August 2017
Dependency Injection in .NET
Description: This book presents core DI patterns in plain C#, so you’ll fully understand how DI works, covers integration with standard Microsoft technologies like ASP.NET MVC, and teaches you to use DI frameworks like Structure Map, Castle Windsor, and Unity.
Written by: Mark Seemann, Published: September 2011
Note: Second edition coming in 2018!
4. Sitecore Marketers / Content Administrators
Practical Sitecore 8 Configuration and Strategy: A User Guide for Sitecore’s Content and Marketing Capabilities
Description: This book is targeted towards the marketer looking to get the most out of their investment in the Sitecore platform.
Written by: Phillip Wicklund, Published: December 2015
Connect: How to Use Data and Experience Marketing to Create Lifetime Customers
Description: This book outlines the massive paradigm shift currently taking place within the industry, and provides the insight and perspective marketers need to stay on board. Readers will find guidance toward reaching a customer base that sees marketers as an unnecessary annoyance, and strategies for engaging those customers at touch points throughout the customer lifecycle.
Written by: Lars Birkholm Petersen, Ron Person and Christopher Nash, Published: September 2014
Context Marketing For Dummies
Description: Get the whole picture and learn to create a successful online content marketing program.
Written by: Susan Gunelius, Published: May 2011
Note: There is a special Sitecore edition of this book and it’s free of charge. Check it out and download here.
5. More books
If you are done with this list and / or want to explore even more relevant books, definitely check great blog post by Mike Reynolds and really nice topic on Sitecore Stack Exchange which will give you lot more different kind of resources to get you up to speed with Sitecore development or refresh your Sitecore knowledge.
There are also lot of nice free ebooks available in Succintly Series made by Syncfusion. You can find there books with around 100 pages each going straight to the topic. Each ebook is available in PDF, epub or mobi format so suitable for any ebook reader. Ebooks about Visual Studio 2017, ASP.NET Core, SOLID principles, GitHub and many more free of charge.
I have couple of books purchased from https://leanpub.com/ which is a great resource of books from independent writers. Take a look on already mention Principles of Package Design or interestingly looking Design Patterns in C# or bunch of C# related books by Jason Roberts. Some books are free of charge on this portal as minimum pay can be set to 0$, but some have minimum prices set that varies. You can pick the price for the book. You can pay even more 🙂
Goodreads
You can follow me or add me as friend on Goodreads so we can inspire each other with books we are reading or already read. I am always eager to find new books to read. If I just have enough time to read all books I want 🙂
Comment this post if you have some gem in your bookshelf that I haven’t covered or is not covered in links mentioned above and I will happily add it.
Happy reading 🙂
straight to the core 
Thankk you for sharing this
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