This past week at SREcon 2026 Americas, I gave a plenary talk titled The Power of Stories. I referenced several books and papers in that talk, which are linked below.
Books
From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice by Patricia Benner. Benner used narrative vignettes in her research to illustrate the different skills of expert nurses.
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative by Edward Tufte. This book contains Tufte’s criticism of slides used by NASA engineers to support the Challenger launch decision.
The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA by Diane Vaughan. This book describes Vaughan’s findings from studying NASA’s engineering culture in the wake of Challenger disaster.
Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction by Jack Hart. Advice on writing journalism pieces in a narrative style.
Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks. Advice on how to improve your storytelling.
Papers
When Do Stories Work? Evidence and Illustration in the Social Sciences by Andrew Gelman and Thomas Basbøll. Gelman and Basbøll lay out a set of criteria for what makes a good story from a social science perspective.
Two Years Before the Mast: Learning How to Learn about Patient Safety by Richard Cook. Some observations about learning from safety accidents.
An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents by Nancy Leveson and Clark Turner. A detailed account of the Therac-25 radiation therapy overdose accidents, including software implementation details and operator interface details.
A Tale of Two Stories: Contrasting Views of Patient Safety by Richard Cook, David Woods, and Charlotte Miller. Report on a workshop about second stories in patient safety.
Report of the Presidential Comission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, Volume 2: Appendix F – Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle by Richard Feynman. Feynman’s observations on the difference in risk estimates between NASA engineers and leadership.
Surfing Complexity 