Abstract
I buy software engineering books. However, since I live in South Africa, it can sometimes be a bit tricky to find these niche technical books. This article lists some of the places that I've had the most luck in recent years.
I am fortunate in that I have a learning budget. I can generally go to conferences, and pay for online courses if I need to. One of the areas that I often spend my learning budget on is books on various aspects of software engineering.
What sort of books do I mean? Well, anything that is vaguely related to the craft of building software.
There are of course code and technology books, like The Rust Programming Language, or Crafting Interpreters.
There are more process and practices oriented books, like Extreme Programming Explained and Modern Software Engineering.
There are also more business focused books like The Lean Startup.
I live in South Africa, and sometimes that can make it a bit tricky to find that one particular WebAssembly or Elixir book locally.
This article is a quick list of the shops where I've generally had the most luck.
I find that Loot generally has the best selection available at the best price. The downside is that it is slow. I have always received my order eventually, but it has sometimes taken a month for them to get the book from their suppliers. I assume that the reason that they can have a better selection and price is that they don't actually have any of these books locally in stock and I'm waiting for them to import them in the background.
Takealot on the other hand has a smaller selection, but if they say that something is in stock then it will generally arrive in a few days.
Exclusive Books is an older brick and mortar store. I've found that visiting a shop in person is unlikely to have the technical books that I'm after, but their online shop has a much better selection. Just be aware that they tend to be more expensive than the other options.
If you are also buying books in South Africa, I hope this has helped.