I like to read academic self help books about being an academic; every once in a while, I flip through or read a chapter in Writing for social scientists: How to start and finish your thesis, book, or article and Tricks of the trade: How to think about your research while you’re doing it, both by Howard S. Becker, or Ludmilla Jordanova’s History in practice.
A couple of months ago, Alf Rehn generously made The scholar’s progress: Essays on academic life and survival freely available; it’s about to be my next read in this genre.
It is available here (pdf).
