Reading log and field notes from a practicing enterprise architect. Book reviews, mostly.https://eafieldnotes.com/en-ushttps://eafieldnotes.com/classic-vs-bleeding-edge-ea-reading/https://eafieldnotes.com/classic-vs-bleeding-edge-ea-reading/The EA canon split, quietly, around 2023. There is the pre-agentic literature and the post-agentic literature, and the most interesting books are the ones that bridge them. A short tour.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/togaf-10-self-study-path/https://eafieldnotes.com/togaf-10-self-study-path/A practical, budgeted study plan for the OGEA-101 (Foundation) and OGEA-102 (Practitioner) exams. The books, the Series Guides, the practice questions, and what to ignore.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/agentic-architectural-patterns-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/agentic-architectural-patterns-review/Arsanjani and Bustos have written the first patterns catalogue that takes agentic systems seriously as an architectural problem. It is dense, it is opinionated, and it is the book I have been waiting for.Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/enterprise-architecture-age-of-agentic-ai-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/enterprise-architecture-age-of-agentic-ai-review/Maher Dahdour's 2026 book is the first serious attempt at an EA framework for a world where agents are first-class citizens. It is uneven. It is also necessary.Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/mastering-togaf-10-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/mastering-togaf-10-review/Roshan Gavandi's book is the closest thing TOGAF 10 has to a serious self-study companion. Here is what it does well, where it falls short, and how I would use it alongside the standard itself.Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/building-evolutionary-architectures-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/building-evolutionary-architectures-review/Ford, Parsons, and Kua's second edition is a serious upgrade. The fitness-function concept gets the room it needs, and the book is now the practical reference I wanted the first edition to be.Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/team-topologies-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/team-topologies-review/Skelton and Pais's small book has done more for honest conversations about engineering org design than any framework in the last decade. Here is what holds up, what does not, and how I have actually used it.Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/software-architect-elevator-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/software-architect-elevator-review/Gregor Hohpe wrote the book most practising architects wish their CIO had read. Five years on, the elevator metaphor still does most of the heavy lifting in conversations about what EA is actually for.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/designing-data-intensive-applications-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/designing-data-intensive-applications-review/Kleppmann's book has become the de facto common vocabulary for distributed systems. Eight years on, it is still the one I lend out most, and the only one I have re-read on purpose three times.Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/togaf-standard-10-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/togaf-standard-10-review/Most people who recommend TOGAF have skimmed it. Most who criticize it have skimmed it. I read the 10th Edition cover to cover so you can decide whether you need to.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/what-i-read-in-2025-ea-top-10/https://eafieldnotes.com/what-i-read-in-2025-ea-top-10/Ten books that earned a place on my desk in 2025, with short blurbs and links to the longer reviews. Half are classics I went back to. Half are too new to be classics yet.Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/enterprise-architecture-as-strategy-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/enterprise-architecture-as-strategy-review/Ross, Weill, and Robertson wrote the only EA book that ever got serious boardroom traction. Twenty years on, the Four Operating Models are still the most useful diagnostic I have.Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://eafieldnotes.com/the-phoenix-project-review/https://eafieldnotes.com/the-phoenix-project-review/Re-reading Gene Kim's parable now that 'DevOps' is a job title, a vendor category, and an awkward team name. What still lands, what feels dated, and why I keep handing it to new engineering managers.Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT