I recently read the book by Emanuelle Derman "My life as a Quant" and really liked it. It was full of motivational anectodes and made me clarify some of the important things one needs to attend when one is about to start a new project working alone or when one communicates with others or how one approaches problem solving. Do you have any recommendations for other such books that are clear, and honest in the way it communicates the authors experiences? Ofcourse it would be interesting to read books by people from other fields: physics, math etc.thank you in advance.Demian

Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a new machine" is a really good refelction on what it is like to work on an obsessive team. Won a Pullitzer.

Good book.It contains at least one compelling lesson for everyone here.Not to act as a spoiler, but the guys on the project were shafted.Their mistake was to deliver the product, then expect a reward in the form of stock options and bonuses.They endured low pay under that expectation.Of course since they delivered, there was no incentive for managment to give them a bonus. Bonuses are heavily influenced by your value next year, often more than what you did last year.

Soul of a New Machine