I like to read computer books. Many people find them dry, boring, and liken them to reading a history text-book (which I also enjoy reading).

I bought a few new books last week, one on Apache webserver and one on PHP 5 programming. Both are good books but the cost me about $65 bucks in total. I could have saved a few buck by ordering from Amazon or the like but I prefer immediate gratification so I went the my local Barnes and Noble. For me, being surrounded by thousands of books on any topic imaginable is empowering. It reminds me that if you are willing to put in the work, you can learn anything.

So, I’m getting off topic. After buying those books last week I decided I needed to find a way to lower my obligatory “nerd reading” cost. I found my answer at one of my favorite publishers websites. O’Reilly media publishes, hands down, the best technical books on the market. I found they also have one of the best deals on the market: the Safari Library.

Twenty bucks a month gives you access to 1000′s of books from O’Reilly and about 20 other publishers. The twenty dollar subscription (actually $19.95) give you 10 “slots” in your bookshelf that you can change out every 30 days. If you want to shell out fourty bucks you can have unlimited books in your bookshelf. I’m sure that would be great it you were using the library for research and needed to switch around a lot. If figured 10 books a month was plenty for me, espeically since I am reading most of them cover-to-cover.

This service is a god-send to me. If you want to check it out surf on over to O’Reilly. They have a 10 day trial so if you don’t like it, you don’t pay; unless of course, you forget to cancel the subscription.

Filed under: F.Y.I.