But last week I suddenly had the desire to know what the new best software development books are. And I couldn't find any such list. So, of course, I made it myself.

In this post I proudly present the Top 50 New Software Development Books, where new means "less than two years old". This list was created using a weighed mix of the following criteria:

• Number of ratings on Amazon.com
• Average rating on Amazon.com
• Number of ratings on GoodReads.com
• Averate rating on GoodReads.com

Note: The time that has passed since a book's release date was part of the calculation. For example: A book that got three 5-star ratings in just four months is listed higher than a book that got the same ratings in a much longer period of time.

Some other things worth pointing out:

• Like in the previous edition, I ignored all technology-specific titles. Only books about generic software engineering topics were allowed on the list.
• I discarded all re-releases of books that had earlier editions before 2007. The only exception is Making Things Happen, because Scott Berkun changed the title of his book. And because he's a nice bloke who granted an interview with me.
• Thomas Erl is on this list three times (#6, #17, #24). He didn't pay me for that, unfortunately. He just did it all by himself.
• Three books released in 2009 were already able to get listed here, which is quite an achievement: Agile Testing (#28), 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know (#33), and Scrumban (#49).
• There are 22 books from 2007 on this list, 25 books from 2008, and 3 from 2009.
• While making this list I drank 8 cups of coffee, and consumed a full bag of Belgian chocolates.
• This must be the first list of mine where Steve McConnell is not listed.

I hope you will enjoy the results...

The book Getting Results from Software Development Teams from Lawrence J. Peters (8-6-2008) would have been #51. But alas, I have to stop somewhere...