These are 10 books that have been foundational for me personally in my career as a network engineer. I left out the Cisco CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE textbooks, though they were all mostly fantastic. However, this list below has been great for me as foundational networking knowledge in a well-written format.
Toward the bottom are several books that I’ve read much more recently, including books about network automation and machine learning in networking. Personally, for anyone seeking to get into network engineering or to become a more well-rounded networking professional, I recommend topics around automation and ML as well.
I’m sure you can think of many books that have been foundational for you that aren’t on this list, so please feel free to drop a book title in the comments or on social media.
1. Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1, 2nd Edition, by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer Carroll
2. Routing TCP/IP, Volume 2, 2nd Edition, by Jeff Doyle
3. Optimal Routing Design (Networking Technology) 1st Edition, by Russ White, Alvaro Retana, Don Slice
4. Practical Packet Analysis, Third Edition, by Chris Sanders
5. Machine Learning for Network and Cloud Engineers: Get ready for the next Era of Network Automation, by Javier Antich
6. Network Warrior: Everything You Need to Know That Wasn’t on the CCNA Exam 2nd Edition, by Gary Donahue
7. Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, by James Kurose and Keith Ross
8. Computer Networks, by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and David J. Wetherall
9. Network Programmability and Automation: Skills for the Next-Generation Network Engineer 2nd Edition, by Matt Oswalt, Christian Adell, Scott S. Lowe, Jason Edelman
10. Mastering Python Networking 4th Edition, by Eric Chou
{networkphil} 
Leave a comment