Four titles covering the modern Microsoft stack — AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation, Entity Framework Core, and the C# language itself. Each one stands on its own; read in any order.
The Microsoft Agent Framework, from first loop to production
An agent is an ordinary C# object with a loop, a toolbox and a memory. This book takes you from that first loop to orchestrated, hosted, observable systems you can defend in an architecture review.
Building Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems
Your model does not know your documents. Twenty-five chapters turn that gap into an engineering problem with measurable answers — retrieval quality, grounded citations, cost, and a gate that catches regressions.
Modelling, querying and tuning on EF Core 10
The ORM you already use, taken seriously: how the change tracker actually behaves, why a query translates the way it does, and what to do when the SQL it generates disappoints you.
C# 5 to C# 14, grouped into ten themes
A decade of language releases, read in an afternoon. Every feature gets the problem it was invented to solve, the syntax that solves it, and an honest note on when to leave it alone.
The two AI titles are designed to be read together. Agents gives you something that can act; RAG gives it something true to say. Bought as a pair, they cost less than the sum of their parts.
Take the free one first. Keeping Up with C# costs nothing and tells you plainly how the other three are written.
Read it free