Debugging The Uncanny Valley

A genuinely enjoyable read that also taught me a great deal.

I picked this up after getting stuck on a project and it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. The examples are small enough to type out and experiment with, which is exactly what I want from a book like this. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. Worth the money and the reading time, without hesitation.

Not quite what I expected from the description, but there is material here.

A colleague recommended this and I can see why. It does something that few technical books manage: it respects the reader's time. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. A few of the examples could be more realistic, but the underlying points come across clearly. The author is unusually honest about where the simplifications break down, which I appreciated. Borrow it first if you can, or at least check the table of contents carefully before buying.