What is the best, sexiest book on software testing that is also useful?

Question

I've read a number of great books on software design, software management. In these books, you can find authors with passion and readers who get excited about the latest thing, whether it's agile, patterns, BDD. A typical engineering team is constantly buzzing about these things and arguing in the halls about whether buzzword X is a load of hooey or the greatest thing ever. Where are the exciting books on testing software? Software testing could be so much more exciting. I'm looking sexy testing books.

• Are for the role of black-box and system integration testers who, in the end, make sure we don't ship a turd.
• Not a dry book like "Best practices in formal software quality assurance."
• They give the reader a paradigm or meme to get fired up about. Something like the agile manifesto from the perspective of the tester, not management.

Answer 1

It's definitely not sexy but it's a great resource on software testing.

Check out Gerard Meszaros's xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code book.

Answer 2

I think there are couple of great speakers about software testing: Robert Sabourin, James Bach and Bob Galen.

Answer 3

I haven't finished it yet but James Whittakers new book, Exploratory Software Testing, might fit the bill based on what I've read so far.

Answer 4

How about "Lessons learned in Software Testing"? I'm a black-(sometimes gray-)box tester and I enjoyed it. Not sure though if it'll be sexy enough for you (to each his own :]).