Lisible.xyz

Books - 2023-03-04 (4 min. read)

• hacking
• irl

My personal list of books to read or refer to.

Two years ago I bought an ebook reader, it’s an Onyx Boox Note 3. It is running Android so it’s pretty convenient. The only bad thing about it is the built-in apps that I’m not sure I can trust, so I decided to root it (which was not the easiest process) and add a firewall to deny all network traffic except for whitelisted apps.

Anyway, thanks to that purchase I read a few books, mostly technical ones. Here is the list of books I can suggest. I will update it in the future if needed.

Technical books

• Game Engine Architecture, by Jason Gregory,
  ISBN13 9781138035454

  I have a physical, hardcover copy of the second edition. It’s a really nice book if you want to learn about commercial game engines internals. It covers most if not all subjects related to game engines, from assets management to renderers.

  It’s written by a developer at Naughty Dog, which is the game studio behind Uncharted and The Last of Us. I highly recommend that book.

• Modern Operating Systems, by Andrew S. Tanenbaum,
  ISBN13 9780133591620

  This book covers operating systems internals. It’s a bit old but still relevant. It’s one of the most popular books on the subject and it is often refered to in university courses.

• Introduction to Algorithms, by Thomas H. Cormen et al.,
  ISBN13 9780262046305

  This is the classic algorithms book that all teachers use. Because of its name, you might think it’s short, but it’s actually 1000+ pages.

  I wish I had read it entirely when I was a student. It contains a lot of the algorithms you might encounter.

• OpenGL SuperBible, by Graham Sellers et al.,
  ISBN13 9780672337475

  A physical copy of the seventh edition was offered to me. It contains a good tutorial on OpenGL and the reference of the API.

  I’m not sure I can recommend this kind of books, as they can become outdated quite fast (even though most of what is in the book stays true). I haven’t used OpenGL in a long time and I’m not sure I will get back to it (WebGPU and Vulkan becoming more prevalent these days) so I don’t use this book that much.

  Maybe get it if you’re sure you’re really into OpenGL.

• Foundations of Game Engine Development, Volume 1: Mathematics, by Eric Lengyel,
  ISBN13 9780985811747

  This book is basically a summary of the maths that are often encountered in game engines, such as linear algebra. I barely use it and I feel like most of it is easily available online, so I’m not sure I would recommend it.

Non-technical books

• What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, by Randall Munroe, ISBN13 9781848549562

  This is a funny book by Randall Munroe, the author of XKCD. I used to read it on the train when I was traveling often between Dijon and Bordeaux.

  The second volume is out but I haven’t picked it up yet.

• Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, by Randall Munroe, ISBN13 9780544668256

  Another funny book by Randall Munroe I liked.

Visual novels

• Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0, by Chiyomaru Shikura, 5pb.

  My favorite visual novel by far. It is part of the 科学ADV (Science Adventure) series. Talks about time travel.

• Robotics;Notes, by Chiyomaru Shikura, 5pb.

  Another visual novel of the 科学ADV series, this one is about robotics. Not as good as Steins;Gate but it is enjoyable.

• Ace Attorney, by Shu Takumi, Capcom

  This is a famous visual novel series, I have played them from Phoenix Wright to Apollo Justice. I haven’t played the 3DS ones yet.

  I also watched the japanese live action movie which is surprisingly good.