Anything from Mike Cohn is good, and this one is satisfies my hunger to learn how we can build the right thing. User Stories are simple yet effective. Mike also gives great background on using them - all in a readably short work.

How do we create quality code? We want refactoring and continuous integration. Unit tests are a key step. Of the many books on Unit Testing, Lasse's is my favorite because he covers the crunchy technical bits for several environments. It's one thing to know the general concept of Test, Code, Refactor. It's another to do it with your environment! This book touches all the bases.

While I have some respect for facets of the many agile project management methods out there, Scum wins the day for me because of its simplicity, elegance, and effectiveness. I was required to read this book before my Certified Scrum Master course, but I was glad I did.

The code isn't done until all the refactoring is done. Code that merely passes the tests may not be good enough if it's so complicated I can't maintain it. This book doesn't just explain the necessity of refactoring (the art of improving code without adding features or fixing bugs). It tells you how. After reading this book, you code won't have those 'bad code smells' anymore!

Woo hoo! an agile book on testing, by the experts! For a while, testing had been an underserved area in Agile authorship. Usually I like to recommend concise books, but this one is big. I don't mind. Testing needs it's good share of attention, so this one deserves every millimeter it takes on in my bookcase.

The ideas in this book give us a good framework for better understanding our stakeholder needs – not just end users, but people paying for the software, insiders on our team (who may need tracing and logging that users never see), and partners, who may need migration paths. This book shows how, and who.

Continuous Integration (CI) is such a key leverage point in our process; it was wonderful to see a readable book on the subject. Technical bits on individual tools tend to become obsolete over time, which is I why I like this book because it covers many of the general goals of CI - which go far beyond the build itself.

Folks often ask me if Agile can scale. There sometimes is an impression it's only for small teams. No! Large teams have used it as well - and with positive results. This book discusses all the issues that larger teams may wonder about. It's a key book for our larger teams.

I love this book because the topic is so generally applicable. Sometimes it's good to step back and take a break from the specifics of our craft, and see if we can tune up our brain to work better - on any problem. This book does a fine job of that.