Approaching Theory Books and Essential Backend Development Reading List

We begin by examining the act of reading itself, asking why we read and identifying two main motivations: entertainment and the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.

The author argues that reading is a low‑efficiency information input method, valuable because it forces the brain to reflect, summarize, and compress the material, thereby cultivating critical thinking and wisdom.

To tackle theory‑heavy books, the author suggests first gaining a broad, fuzzy framework of the domain, then diving into details, and recommends using well‑organized video content as an entry point across various fields such as economics, international relations, humanities, politics, stock market, and AI.

For backend engineers, a specific reading list is provided, including titles like Google Software Engineering , Designing Data‑Intensive Applications (DDIA) , Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective , The Pragmatic Programmer , UNIX Programming , Site Reliability Engineering , Refactoring , Kubernetes: The Definitive Guide , and others.

Before reading each book, the author advises watching concise video introductions to generate questions and then using the book to fill in the knowledge gaps, exemplified by a DDIA video.

The piece then reflects on personal reading methods, comparing short videos, long videos, and theoretical books, and emphasizes that in the mobile‑internet era we must lower reading barriers to sustain consistent learning.

Finally, the concept of wisdom is defined as the combination of knowledge and the ability to apply it, describing its dimensions: transcending mere knowledge accumulation, self‑recognition, moral judgment, practical application, and the pursuit of truth.