Top Engineering books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Engineering books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Engineering

Understanding the concepts of Engineering starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

The Mythical Man-Month

Few books on software project management have been as influential and timeless as The Mythical Man-Month. With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now,…

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Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed

From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achieve…

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Engineering and the Mind's Eye

Engineering and the Mind's Eye (1992) is a book by Eugene S. Ferguson, an engineer and historian of science and technology. It was published by MIT Press. In it, Ferguson discusses the importance of the mind's eye for the practicing engineer, including spatial visualization and visual thinking.

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Few books transform a generation and then establish themselves as touchstones for the generations that follow. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is one such book. This modern epic of a man’s search for meaning became an instant bestseller on publication in 1974, acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters. It continues to inspire millions. A narration…

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To engineer is human

“Though ours is an age of high technology, the essence of what engineering is and what engineers do is not common knowledge. Even the most elementary of principles upon which great bridges, jumbo jets, or super computers are built are alien concepts to many. This is so in part because engineering as a human endeavor is not yet integrated into our culture and intellectual tradition. And while e…

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The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools—machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from gu…

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Additional Engineering Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Engineering, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

What inspires and spurs on a great idea? Can we train ourselves to think in a way that will enable world-changing understandings and insights to emerge?
Richard Hamming said we can. He first inspired a generation of engineers, scientists, and researchers in 1986 with “You and Your Research,” an electrifying sermon on why some scientists do great work, why most don’t, why he did, and why you…

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The Pragmatic Programmer

Ward Cunningham Straight from the programming trenches, The Pragmatic Programmer cuts through the increasing specialization and technicalities of modern software development to examine the core process--taking a requirement and producing working, maintainable code that delights its users. It covers topics ranging from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques f…

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Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Capturing a wealth of experience about the design of object-oriented software, four top-notch designers present a catalog of simple and succinct solutions to commonly occurring design problems. Previously undocumented, these 23 patterns allow designers to create more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to rediscover the design solutions themselves. The authors beg…

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Design for the real world.

Design for the Real World has, since its first appearance twenty-five years ago, become a classic. Translated into twenty-three languages, it is one of the world's most widely read books on design. In this edition, Victor Papanek examines the attempts by designers to combat the tawdry, the unsafe, the frivolous, the useless product, once again providing a blueprint for sensible, responsible de…

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Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail

The stories that make up Why Buildings Fall Down are in the end very human ones, tales of the interaction of people and nature, of architects, engineers, builders, materials, and natural forces all coming together in sometimes dramatic (and always instructive) ways. B/W line drawings

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The Design of Everyday Things

Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to a…

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This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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