What book would you recommend to explain to someone what you do for a living?

"bullshit jobs" by David Graeber

Excel for Dummies 2023

Microchip Fabrication by van Zant. Specifically chapters 8 and 10 discussing photolithography. Might be different chapters in current version.

I'm a supervisor in a machine and welding shop so I would pick Carl Vernon's " Surrounded By Morons Make the Most of it. "

Makers by Cory Doctorow

Textbooks

The Linux and Unix System Administration Handbook (6th edition)

Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton!

Upgrade by Blake Crouch

Bastard Operator from Hell

The book I wrote. When I first talked with the publisher he asked, "what skills would you look for in someone who wants to do your job?" And that's the premise I stuck with writing it.

Kanski's clinical ophthalmology; https://shop.elsevier.com/books/kanskis-clinical-ophthalmology/salmon/978-0-7020-7711-1

Counselling Skills and Studies

The US Federal code of regulations. Im a US customs broker. At 50 titles and sometimes 100s of pages per title if not thousands, it’d be quite the read in one go!

Edit: I just checked, it changes pretty regularly, usually stands somewhere around 90 thousand pages. The specific code on customs brokers is title 19 part 111. But really the whole thing is specific to my job in one way or another. I’ve never actually read the entire thing personally as it’s practically impossible. I look up whatever I need to as needed.

Does David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs count?

Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

As someone going into conservation I'd probably just throw a copy Nat Geo at them or something. If we were talking about shows/movies I'd go with Wildcat, even if it is a depressing documentary.

Cinderella. The dead parents are also on point 👌

Alt text: Baby Loves Coding book cover by Ruth Spiro

James Dukeminier’s “Property”

Not a book, but the Bastard Operator From Hell series on theregister.co.uk gives a decent picture, if a touch dramatized.

The House of God

Between the lines

It’s a book that takes the theory out of acoustic design and loudspeaker placement / management, and says “Life sucks, it’s never perfect, let’s make it suck less.”