Why I Read Technical Books
Back to books.
I suppose the original reason is that when I first got started with computing in the mid-1990s, Internet access was not yet common in the home. Books were the only resource available to me. Buying (or checking out) a book became my default method of picking up a new topic.
Even now that most information can be pieced together from free online resources, I still prefer reading technical books over other types of resources to learn new subjects. Here’s some reasons why.
Complete
Unlike The Web, you can read all of a book. When I reach the last page of a book, I can feel confident that I’ve been exposed to all the material it contained. (I may not understand it all yet, but I’ve seen it.)
An expert has filled a book with information and I’ve seen every word of it. That builds confidence.
A single voice and a single stylistic convention
A book with a single author (or several authors writing as one) has a single authorial voice. As you adjust to the writing style in the book, it becomes easier to read. The understanding and clarity comes faster. This is more than just a "feeling", it’s part of that magic of reading that Stephen King describes as being akin to telepathy.
A technical book will have a consistent style throughout. Code examples, definitions, call-outs, and asides. Understanding these conventions reduces the friction of taking in the information so you can concentrate on the topic itself.
Update 2026: I’m really, really worried that I’m not going to be seeing a lot of human-authored technical books in the near future. I’ve mostly stopped buying new books for this reason and this whole state of affairs is depressing beyond belief. I definitely make exceptions when the author is someone I can follow online to get assurance that they’re actually writers.
Curated
As mentioned in "Complete" above, a good book’s contents will have been carefully chosen. The author has put a lot of thought into which things to put in the book and which to leave out.
If I read a single book on the subject, I’m putting my trust in the author to have given me what they feel I need to know.
Multiple books is twice the curation
Reading a second book on the same subject by a different author can be a very powerful thing. Now I’ve seen the material from potentially two different points of view, which should help me understand the material even more thoroughly.
Plus the meta-information: The overlap (or lack of overlap!) between the two books is also valuable: If they both cover a subject, it’s probably important. But if they include different material, that’s interesting too.
You get to keep the book
The book is yours to keep. I buy actual physical paper books for technical subjects, when I can. I like putting sticky notes in the books I’m reading as bookmarks for details I’d like to reference later.
I can pull that book off the shelf later to reference it. Unlike many websites, it will look exactly the same as the last time I read it. A frequently referenced book can function like a memory palace, giving the information a "place" where you know you’ll be able to find it again. Plus, no advertising, comments, or other distractions. Just the information, quietly waiting.
This is less practical, but: I like having the book on my shelf as a reminder of the hours I put into learning a subject. Some thin books may contain months of learning material (at least at my pace). I don’t mind the space these take up. I like having books around! The finished ones are more than just trophies and the unfinished ones are more than just a treasure horde of knowledge to be gained and trophies yet to be earned. But they are also those things.
See also
See Where I Buy Books (I mention technical books specifically and some of my favorite technical book publishers.)
And also Less online reading, more book reading, which covers some similar ground.
And these cards: