# Software Internals Book Club

# Software Internals Book Club

Email-based book club run by Phil Eaton. 2500+ members. Focus: databases, distributed systems, software performance. Format: Google Group email discussion, 1-2 chapters per week over ~3 months, weekend recap from a rotating discussion leader.

## Selection criteria
- 350–550 pages
- Specific software topic (not philosophy)
- Not a textbook
- Suitable for senior developers and above

## Currently reading
- *Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2026-ostep.html)

## Previously read
- *The Art of Multiprocessor Programming* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2025-art-of-multiprocessor-programming.html)
- *Concurrency Control and Recovery in Database Systems* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2025-concurrency-control-and-recovery-in-database-systems.html)
- *Writing for Developers* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2025-writing-for-developers.html)
- *Database Design and Implementation* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2024-database-design-and-implementation.html)
- *Understanding Software Dynamics* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2024-understanding-software-dynamics.html)
- *Systems Performance* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2024-systems-performance.html)
- *Database Internals* — [cohort page](https://eatonphil.com/2023-database-internals.html)

## Potential future books
- [*The Garbage Collection Handbook* (2nd ed.)](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-garbage-collection/9781000883688/)
- [*Designing Data-Intensive Applications* (2nd ed.)](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-data-intensive-applications/9781098119058/)
- [*High Performance Browser Networking*](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/high-performance-browser/9781449344757/)
- [*Concurrency: The Works of Leslie Lamport*](https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/3335772)
- [*Fault Tolerant Design*](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-2113-9)
- [*Replication: Theory and Practice*](https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/2172338)
- *The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis* (publisher link on source appeared duplicated with the Replication entry — verify)
- [*Virtual Machines*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9781558609105/virtual-machines)
- [*On Transactional Concurrency Control*](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-01873-2)
- [*Feedback Control for Computer Systems*](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/feedback-control-for/9781449362638/)
- [*Hacker's Delight* (2nd ed.)](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/hackers-delight-second/9780133084993/)
- [*Transaction Processing*](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/573304)
- [*Memory Systems: Cache, DRAM, Disk*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780123797513/memory-systems)
- [*Building a Debugger*](https://nostarch.com/building-a-debugger)
- [*Readings in Database Systems* (the "Red Book")](http://www.redbook.io/)