I currently have 20 books in my list of recommended books. I've read all of those books in the past 2 years, which means i'm averaging about 10 books a year. That's probably a bit much, and i have to admit i've been reading a bit less lately than i used to. But i've noticed that a lot of developers that i know hardly ever read books about software development. Which is too bad, because those books really are a cheap way of investing in yourself and your career.
Well, perhaps cheap isn't the best word to use. After all, some of these books are somewhat expensive, and buying a lot of them certainly adds up. But if you pick the right books, they are usually more than worth the money they cost. Besides, you shouldn't just look at the price of the book. The most important thing to keep in mind is the knowledge and insight you can get from them. That typically depends on the type of books you buy though. I usually avoid books that are library/framework/language-specific, unless i am very interested in a specific topic.
The books that usually provide the biggest value are the ones that teach you things that you can use in any development environment. It can be about development methodologies, certain concepts or practices, patterns (not just design patterns but architectural patterns, coding patterns, testing patterns, ...), as long as the knowledge is reusable. These kinds of books allow you to learn from the experiences of some of the best people in this industry. And the best thing about it is that you can learn a lot from these books in a few days (or weeks), even though it probably took the authors a couple of years to acquire that knowledge and experience. Isn't that one of the coolest forms of reuse you can think of?
Now obviously, reading a couple of books won't instantly put you on the same level as the authors, but at the very least it allows you to significantly increase your skills and insight with relatively little effort. And when you start applying that knowledge, you can start reaping the benefits of it pretty soon. It could definitely make your job easier. It most likely will increase the quality of your output at work. It almost certainly increases your value as a software developer.
So do yourself (and everyone else) a favor, and read a good book on software development once in a while. And if you need some help picking out the good books, just look here 
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