What are you trying to reach? For something rather general like this i would strongly avoid reading any books older than a few years. 2003 is VERY OLD by it standards.
I am trying to reach a point where I can say - "Hey! Look I've designed this highly scalable website" to satiate my own hunger for this knowledge. And I know that one can't possible cover all (and maybe not even a lot) scalability topics while designing such a site but at least it would give me a solid start - something I can build on later on. Yes, I understand 2003 is very old and hence the question - does someone know something similar to MIT 6.171 that's more recent or if that course has been updated. Also, thanks for your reply :)