Some Tech Books
Around the tail end of 2021 I started looking through used book sites for tech books because new ones are very expensive. I discovered a few things: old tech books are dirt cheap, a lot of the basics haven't changed all that much, and a lot of the old books had fantastic covers. I decided to buy a few, partially for decoration, partially because they're fun to look through, and partially because they're cheap. You can click on any image to get a bigger image if that's what you're into.
I started posting just the books with interesting covers and then I got carried away and did the rest of them, too. You might notice a lot of O'Reilly books. I went through a phase.
My definition of a 'tech book' is anything that has technical content or that tries to teach you something. That's why things like The Cathedral and the Bazaar aren't on this list. Also, The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a mess and I only managed to read about a third of it before giving up and going to read anything else.
Unless noted, if a book appears on this list, that shouldn't imply any endorsement or that I've gotten around to reading it.
| Image | Title | Author | Edition | ISBN | Date | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
.NET and XML | Niel Bornstein | 9780596003975 | November 2003 | ||
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front users | SURVIVAL EVASION AND ESCAPE | 978-1-4357-8810-7 | 2022 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front Users | The Golden Age of Ballooning | November 2022 | ||
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front Users | DON'T TOUCH THE ARTWORK | 9781312366305 | July 6, 2023 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front users | HUMANBIOLOGICS | 9781304882233 | 2023 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front users | DO NOT INSTALL | 9781304402318 | May 2024 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front Users | THIS TIME DEFINITELY | 9781300645399 | Feb 2025 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front users | CLAUSE 15 COMMON ELEMENTS OF MAUS AND STAR TYPE | 9781300305576 | May 2025 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 Manual | 9front users | release | 9781105987755 | December 2025 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 manual | 9front users | CALLING DTRACY | 9781793390097 | December 2018 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 manual | 9front users | COMMUNITY VS INFRASTRUCTURE | 9781300342366 | December 2021 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 manual | 9front users | EMAILSCHADEN | 9798553936891 | October 2020 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 manual | 9front users | MIT FRUCHTGESCHMACK | 9798734290781 | April 2021 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 manual | 9front users | NO THINKPAD | 9781697699845 | October 2019 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 manual | 9front users | PLAN9-HATERS | 9798649207539 | May 2020 | |
 |
9front Dash 1 manual | 9front users | SKIN OF EVIL | 9781099171567 | May 2019 | |
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V1 | 9781099522901 | May 2019 | |||
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V2 | 9781099806308 | May 2019 | |||
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V3 | 9781074848170 | June 2019 | |||
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V4 | 9781074854171 | June 2019 | |||
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V5 | 9781075079399 | June 2019 | |||
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V6 | 9781075301797 | June 2019 | |||
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V7 | 9781075485657 | June 2019 | |||
 |
9front Programmer's Manual V8 | 9781075487712 | June 2019 | |||
 |
AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal | Vol. 63 No. 8 Part 2 | October 1984 | n.a | ||
 |
Absolute Beginner's Guide to C | Greg Perry | 2nd Edition | 9780672305108 | April 1994 | |
 |
Absolute FreeBSD | Michael W. Lucas | 3rd Edition | 9781593278922 | December 2018 | |
 |
Absolute OpenBSD | Michael W. Lucas | 2nd Edition | 9781593274764 | May 2013 | |
 |
Advanced Unix Programming | Marc J. Rochkind | 9780130118004 | December 1985 | ||
 |
Beginning SQL Programming | John Kauffman, Brian Matsik, Kevin Spencer with Ian Herbert, Julian Skinner, Sakhr Youness | 9781861001801 | December 2001 | ||
 |
Beyond the Basic Stuff With Python | Al Sweigart | 9781593279660 | December 2020 | ||
 |
CSS Cookbook | Christopher Schmitt | 3rd Edition | 9780596155933 | December 2009 | |
 |
Compilers - Principles, Techniques, and Tools | Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey D. Ullman | ||||
 |
Computer Graphics Primer | Mitchell Waite | 1979 | Dust jacket is long gone | ||
 |
Computers Those Amazing Machines | Catherine O'Neill Grace | 9780870445798 | 1985 | ||
 |
Computers are Fun | William | First | Haha | Unknown, probably somewhere around 1986 | A small book that I made some time during my elementary school days, probably as part of a class project. I had completely forgotten about this until my mother dug it out of some old boxes. Contains a few worksheets related to the computers of the day: a Commodore keyboard, punch cards, tape recorders, and so on. |
 |
Cybersecurity Myths and Misconceptions: Avoiding the Hazards and Pitfalls that Derail Us | Eugene Spafford, Leigh Metcalf, Josiah Dykstra | 9780137929238 | February 2023 | ||
 |
DNS and BIND | Cricket Liu & Paul Albitz | Fifth Edition | 9780596100575 | December 2006 | |
 |
Data Structures the Fun Way | Jeremy Kubica | 9781718502604 | September 2022 | ||
 |
Devops for the Desperate | Bradley Smith | 9781718502482 | 2022 | ||
 |
Doing Math with Python | Amit Saha | 978-1-59327-640-9 | 2015 | I found this in the kids' section of a thrift store | |
 |
Easy-to-understand Guide to Home Computers | The Editors of Consumer Guide | ||||
 |
GW/Basic User's Guide | |||||
 |
HTML & XHTML The Definitive Guide | Chuck Musciano & Bill Kennedy | 6th edition | 9780596527327 | October 2006 | |
 |
HTML 4 for Dummies Quick Reference | Deborah S. Ray & Eric J. Ray | 9780764507212 | August 2000 | ||
 |
HTML5 Up and Running | Mark Pilgrim | 9780596806026 | August 2010 | ||
 |
HTTP The Definitive Guide | David Gourley & Brian Totty with Marjorie Sayer, Sailu Reddy & Ansbu Aggarwal | 9781565925090 | December 2002 | ||
 |
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn & TensorFlow | Aurélien Géron | 1491962291 | 2017 | I found this at a thrift store for $2 | |
 |
Hardware Hacking | Lee Barken, Marcus R. Brown, Job de Haas, Deborah Kaplan, Bobby Kinstle, Tom Owad, Ryan Russell, Albert Yarusso | 9781932266832 | December 2004 | ||
 |
How Cybersecurity Really Works | Sam Grubb | 9781718501287 | 2021 | ||
 |
IRC Hacks | Paul Mutton | 9780596006877 | December 2004 | ||
 |
ITIL Foundation Exam Study Guide | Liz Gallacher and Helen Morris | ||||
 |
Internet and World Wide Web Simplified | Paul Whitehead and Ruth Maran | 2nd Edition | 0-7645-6029-8 | 1997 | Recommended by Satisfied Users #4,030,978 and #4,030,979 |
 |
Introducing Regular Expressions | Michael Fitzgerald | 9781449392680 | August 2012 | ||
 |
Javascript Crash Course | Nick Morgan | 9781718502260 | January 2024 | ||
 |
Javascript the Definitive Guide | David Flanagan | 5th Edition | 9780596101992 | August 2006 | |
 |
Kids' Guide to the Internet | Bruce Goldstone and Arthur Perley, illustrated by Dan Regan | 9780816741311 | December 1996 | ||
 |
Kill it with Fire | Marianne Bellotti | 1718501188 | 2021 | ||
 |
Learn Java the Easy Way | Bryson Payne | 2nd edition | 1593278055 | 2017 | I found this in the kids' section of a thrift store |
 |
Learn to Code by Solving Problems | Daniel Zingaro | 9781718501324 | June 2021 | ||
 |
Learning C# 3.0 | Jesse Liberty & Brian MacDonald | 9780596521066 | November 2008 | ||
 |
Learning GNU Emacs | Debra Cameron, James Elliott, Marc Loy, Eric Raymond & Bill Rosenblatt | 3rd Edition | 9780596006488 | December 2004 | |
 |
Learning PHP, MySQL, & JavaScript | Robin Nixon | 9780596157135 | July 2009 | ||
 |
Learning Perl | Randall L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix & brian d foy | 4th Edition | 9780596101053 | December 2005 | |
 |
Learning Python | Mark Lutz | 5th edition | 9781449355739 | December 2013 | This is the big one |
 |
Learning XML | Erik T. Ray | 2nd Edition | 9780596004200 | October 2003 | |
 |
Learning XSLT | Michael Fitzgerald | 9780596003272 | December 2003 | ||
 |
Learning the bash Shell | Cameron Newham & Bill Rosenblatt | 3rd Edition | 9780596009656 | December 2005 | |
 |
Learning the vi and Vim Editors | Arnold Robbins, Elbert Hannah & Linda Lamb | 7th Edition | |||
 |
Life With UNIX - A Guide for Everyone | Don Libes, Sandy Ressler | Special Edition | 9780135366578 | December 1989 | |
 |
Linux Complete | The Linux Documentation Project, compiled by Grant Taylor | 9780782140361 | December 2001 | "World's #1 Linux Value" | |
 |
Linux Kernel in a Nutshell | Greg Kroah-Hartman | ||||
 |
Mastering Regular Expressions | Jeffrey E. F. Friedl | 2nd edition | |||
 |
Mathematics and Computers | George R Stibitz and James A Larrivee | LOL | 1957 | Ex-library copy from the Loyola College Library in Baltimore, Maryland | |
 |
Microsoft Office 2000 Simplified | Ruth Maran | 0764560522 | May 1999 | ||
 |
Modern Operating Systems | Andrew S. Tanenbaum | Second | 9780130313584 | ||
 |
Modern System Administration | Jennifer Davis | 9781492055211 | November 2022 | ||
 |
Networking for System Administrators | Michael W. Lucas | 1642350338 | January 2015 | ||
 |
Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing | Martin Erwig | 9780262036634 | 2017 | ||
 |
Operating System Concepts | Silberschatz, Galvin | Fifth | |||
 |
Operating System Concepts | Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne | Seventh Edition | 9780471694663 | 2004 | |
 |
Perl in a Nutshell | Nathan Patwardhan, Ellen Siever & Stephen Spainhour | 2nd Edition | |||
 |
Powershell for Sysadmins | Adam Bertram | 9781593279189 | 2020 | ||
 |
Practical SQL | Anthony DeBarros | 2nd | 9781718501065 | 1/25/2022 | |
 |
Practical Vulnerability Management | Andrew Magnusson | 9781593279882 | September 2020 | ||
 |
Programming Web Services with SOAP | James Snell, Doug Tidwell, & Pavel Kulchenko | 9780596000950 | December 2002 | ||
 |
Programming Web Services with XML-RPC | Simon St. Laurent, Joe Johnston & Edd Dumbill. Foreword by Dave Winer | 9780596001193 | July 2001 | ||
 |
Running Linux | Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman | 2nd Edition | |||
 |
Software Tools | Kernighan, Plauger | 9780201036695 | December 1976 | ||
 |
TCP/IP Network Administration | Craig Hunt | 3rd Edition | 9780596002978 | April 2002 | |
 |
TeX for the Impatient | Paul W. Abrahams, Karl Berry, Kathryn A. Hargreaves | 9780201513752 | December 1990 | ||
 |
Teach Yourself Linux Programming in 24 Hours | Warren W. Gay | ||||
 |
Teach Yourself Visually Computers | Ruth Maran, Paul Whitehead | 3rd | 0764535250 | 2001 | I found this in the kids' section of a thrift store |
 |
The AWK Programming Languange | Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, Peter J. Weinberger | 9780201079814 | December 1988 | ||
 |
The Book of pf | Peter N.M. Hansteen | 3rd Edition | 9781593275891 | 2014 | |
 |
The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs | Thomas A. Limoncelli, Peter H. Salus | 1573980420 | 2007 | ||
 |
The Digital Designer's Bible | Alastair Campbell, Alistair Dabbs | 9780060588328 | December 2005 | ||
 |
The Internet for Dummies | John R. Levine, Carol Baroudi, & Margaret Levine Young | 3rd | 1568846207 | 1995 | |
 |
The Org Mode 9 Reference Manual | Carsten Dominik | 9789888406852 | 2016 | I had a coupon | |
 |
The Recursive Book of Recursion | Al Sweigart | 9781718502024 | July 2020 | ||
 |
The SGML Handbook | Charles F. Goldfarb | 9780198537373 | December 1991 | ||
 |
The Secret Life of Programs | Jonathan E. Steinhart | 9781593279707 | August 2019 | ||
 |
The UNIX Programming Environment | Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike | ||||
 |
The Waite Group UNIX Papers for UNIX Developers and Power Users | |||||
 |
The Waite Group's UNIX Communications | Bart Anderson, Barry Costales, Harry Henderson | 2nd Edition | 9780672227738 | December 1991 | |
 |
The Waite Group's Unix Primer Plus | Waite, Martin, and Prata | Second Edition | The 'handy tear-out cards' appear to be intact | ||
 |
The Waite Group's Unix System V Bible | Stephen Prata, Donald Martin | ||||
 |
The Waite Group: Tricks of the UNIX Masters | Russell G. Sage | 9780672224492 | November 1986 | ||
 |
Time Management for System Administrators | Thomas A. Limoncelli | 9780596007836 | November 2005 | ||
 |
UNIX Programmer's Reference | John J. Valley | 9780880225366 | December 1991 | ||
 |
UNIX Shell Commands Quick Reference | William Holliker | 9780880225724 | December 1990 | ||
 |
UNIX for the Impatient | Paul W. Abrahams, Bruce R. Larson | 2nd Edition | |||
 |
Unix Systems Advanced Administration and Management Handbook | Bruce H. Hunter, Karen Bradford Hunter | ||||
 |
Using Unix By Example | P.C. Poole & N. Poole | 9780201185355 | December 1985 | ||
 |
VBScript in a Nutshell | Paul Lomax, Matt Childs & Ron Petrusha | 2nd Edition | 9780596004880 | December 2003 | |
 |
Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL | Hugh E. Williams & David Lane | 2nd Edition | 9780596005436 | May 2004 | |
 |
Web Design in a Nutshell | Jennifer Niederst | 2nd Edition | 9780596001964 | October 2001 | |
 |
Web Design in a Nutshell | Jennifer Niederst Robbins | 3rd Edition | 9780596009878 | ||
 |
Web Services Essentials | Ethan Cerami | 9788173663390 | February 2002 | ||
 |
Windows 98 Simplified | Ruth Maran | ||||
 |
Windows XP Simplified | Ruth Maran | 0764536184 | October 2001 | ||
 |
XForms Essentials | Micah Dubinko | 9780596003692 | December 2003 | ||
 |
XML How to Program | Deitel, Deitel, Nieto, Lin & Sadhu | ||||
 |
XML Schema | Eric van der Vlist | 9780596002527 | June 2002 | ||
 |
XML in a Nutshell | Elliotte Rusty Harold & W. Scott Means | 9780596000585 | December 2001 | ||
 |
XML in a Nutshell | Elliotte Rusty Harold & W. Scott Means | 3rd edition | 9781932690453 ? | September 2004 | |
 |
XPath and XPointer | John E. Simpson | 9780596002916 | July 2002 | ||
 |
XSLT | Doug Tidwell | 2nd Edition | 9780596527211 | December 2008 | |
 |
XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference | Evan Lenz | 9780596100087 | August 2005 | ||
 |
XSLT Cookbook | Sal Mangano | 2nd Edition | 9780596009748 | December 2005 | |
 |
You Can Surf the net! | Marc Gascoigne | November 1996 | It's here. It's now. It's the future. | ||
 |
e-Business & e-Commerce How to Program | Deitel, Deitel & Nieto | 9780130284198 | December 2000 | ||
 |
teach yourself C++ in 24 hours | Jesse Liberty |