What single book has helped you the most in your career?

N2IT

If I had to pick one it would of been John Walkenbach's 101 Ready Macros, this saved my rear early on when I was struggling with some solutions to overcome some nasty data situations. There have been others but you can only pick one and that one had to impacted your career thus far. Not potentially or in the future.

FloOz

Network Warrior has helped me out in the workplace more than I have ever expected.

cknapp78

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Seriously though...I would say...
[h=3]Powershell Deep Dives by Hicks, Siddaway, Grehan and Nikolic[/h]
This book took me so much further in Powershell than I had ever been before. Further my career just by reading it let alone implementing some practices.

Corey

ajs1976

Sams Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 24 hours.

Sams Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 24 Hours (5th Edition): Joe Casad: 9780672335716: Amazon.com: Books

the_Grinch

The Phoenix Project I think is the one that most helped me. It got me to understand that an IT person needs to understand the business end and is there to help further the business. In my current job I definitely have to balance security, regulation, and protecting the businesses on top of the consumers.

Amazon.com: The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win eBook: Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford: Kindle Store

Dieg0M

Routing TCP/IP Vol 1 (AKA The Network Bible)

wes allen

Cryptonomicon - got me psyched on IT, esp. sec/encryption/linux again after being burnt out for a few years.

NotHackingYou

Tie between 3. Head First SQL, Head First C# and Todd Lammle's CCNA guide.

SteveFT

I don't have anything to contribute at this point in my career, but I'm loving this thread. Going to make a list of future reads.

YFZblu

Even though I didn't continue with networking, for me it's probably the CCNA OCG - Those were the first real tangible skills I had as an IT person and helped springboard me into other things.

DevilWAH

The books that help me relax away from my Job. The first half of "Man's Search for Meaning" is one of the most memorable books I have read. It was during this period I was reading a lot more biography's and Philosophy that my career changes from a helpdesk Bum, to getting my head down and starting to get where knew I should be.

Hypntick

The Cuckoo's Egg, absolutely wonderful book.

cgrimaldo

Loved that book.

Nyblizzard

Loving the recommendations. More please!

jvrlopez

The Book of Five Rings.

Iristheangel

5 months ago, it was Network Warrior but now, I'd definitely say CCNP Route Simplified. It got my feet wet with CCIE-concepts like OER/PFR, EEM applets, etc that I use and really solidified a lot of networking concepts that were harder for me prior to reading it. I loved the book and writing style so much, I ended up buying the CCNP Switch, TSHOOT, ARCH, 101 CCNP Labs, and CCDA Simplified books for reference/further education.

networker050184

Probably the CCNA books from Odom. While they were relatively simple, they really got my interest in digging into the finer details in networking rather than just configuring things. I already knew how to type 'router ospf' at the CLI, but it really got me going into the internal workings of the protocols.

LeifAlire

Sybex CISSP 4th Edition, read just that book and passed the CISSP back in 2010.

veritas_libertas

Odom's CCNA books did more to give a foundation for data communication than anything else I have read.

shodown

Cisco Gateway Gatekeepers. While this book is old, and on 12.4 IOS the concepts of how everything works has gotten me out of hotwater serveral times. To me this book is like the TCP/IP Vol 1 for the voice world. Needs an update, but I HIGHLY recommend this book to any one doing VoIP. H323, MGCP, are still in use. SIP has taken over as the prefered way of doing business, but we are still 5 years out from seeing it be in the majority of deployments.

d4nz1g

CCNP TSHOOT, the most awesome book to guide experienced engineers in maintenance, monitoring and troubleshoot routines.

rowelld

The E Myth Revisited helped me understand business. It's aimed toward small businesses and startups. It's not very technical but I like diving into the business side of things to help bring value from the IT side.

tstrip007

Mastering VMware vSphere 5

Mastering VMware vSphere 5: Scott Lowe: 9780470890806: Amazon.com: Books

alan2308

Years before I got into IT, I was given a copy of a previous edition of this: Upgrading and Repairing Networks by Mueller, Scott, Ogletree, Terry William, Soper, Mark Edward. (Que, 2006) [Paperback] 5th Edition: Amazon.com: Books Great combination of width, depth, and readability, and a great place to start.

Since I've been in the field, Network Warrior. It's a great meeting point of the hard and soft skills you need.

Kinet1c

Crush It from Gary Vaynerchuk. Basically, if you love something go all in with it and you will be a success. Good if you're looking for motivation and inspiration. It's worth a read.

olaHalo

Essendon

IT - Mastering VMware vSphere 5 by Scott Lowe

Life - Thrive! by Alan Weiss