Beach reading for systems engineers

Summer is in the air. People in the northern hemisphere are starting to discuss vacation plans and make bold and questionable outfit choices.... Recommendations for beach reads come from everywhere. But the strangest of these lists are those aimed at the working professional. Even though "Systems Engineering with SysML/UML" by Tim Weilkiens is an excellent book, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone as beach reading. But what instead?

J.P. Morgan has a summer reading list!

First: It can get even more bizarre than reading SysML books on the beach. The American bank J.P.Morgan Chase has been publishing a summer reading list for 23 years that business people can have fun with on the beach. How about "CEO Excellence", for example, which was written by several McKinsey partners? That really doesn't have to be the case, rather "Race for Tomorrow" by Simon Mundy (Financial Times) about climate change. Processing this topic at 40 degrees in the shade could help us to become aware of the urgency of the issue (but then please without pool, beach and cocktail).

Just don't ask the engineers

What comes out when we ask the engineers shows Outsystems in this list from 2018: Not a good idea. I'm not sure if "A Practical Guide to Testing in DevOps" makes much sense without hands-on work on the computer. And reading the laptop display in sunlight isn't easy either. Apart from the fact that sand has always been an enemy of complex technology.

But other books on the list are more suitable as beach reading. One example is "Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose" by Tony Hsieh. After all, a vacation is a good time to reflect on what the deeper meaning of life is. Away from the hamster wheel, we can reflect on whether our professional activities really support our spiritual ambitions, or at least do not hinder them.

My recommendation: science fiction, biographies, general knowledge

For me, the beach is the place to read science fiction, especially Hard SciFi. This is entertainment with a technical edge. Good books from this genre are Distress (Greg Egan) or A depth in the sky (Vernor Vinge).

I also consider biographies to be suitable beach reading. A current example would be a biography of Elon Muskbut there are more than enough other exciting people. From the category "deceased" I can recommend the biography Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature recommend.

There are also incredibly great books on general knowledge. I recently read the book The fish within us by Neil Schubin, entertainingly written about archaeology, evolution and biology. Sophisticated enough for a systems engineer, lightweight enough for the beach.

Read what you want!

But hey, everyone should decide for themselves what the right beach read is. But the question is what we actually want: Many people spend the majority of their waking hours either working or thinking about work. The idea of a summer read is that it provides an escape from the office, not another opportunity to think about work.

We can of course keep looking for books that are really suitable as beach reading for work. These books would be aimed at the person behind the Zoom screen on vacation. They would not contain tips on how to increase productivity or teach new technologies. Instead, such books should entertain, make you laugh and not overstretch your intellect, but at the same time not offend the engineer in the reader.

Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash