I spent some time digging into Christopher Alexander, one of the more influential architects of the 20th century.
I don't have a natural interest in architecture, but I found his thinking to have wide ranging application - from software to biology to creativity. I later learned that his seminal book, A Pattern Language set the foundation for the first wiki (the tech behind Wikipedia), as well as the agile software development movement.
His thinking around value, quality, life, evolution, wholeness, and simplicity will stay with me for a long time to come. If you get some fraction of the value and joy out of reading this teacher's reference guide as I did reading the books, I trust it to be a worthwhile use of your time
