Recommended Books

These books are all-time classics. They're the best of their kind and vital to any developer. We recommend them to new and experienced programmers alike.

Life

• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox)
• The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers (Robert C. Martin)
• Joel on Software (Joel Spolsky)
• More Joel on Software (Joel Spolsky)

Computer architecture

• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software (Charles Petzold)

Programming

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman)
• Grokking Algorithms: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People (Aditya Bhargava)
• Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, Second Edition (Steve McConnell)

Operating systems

• UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent Hein, Ben Whaley, Dan Mackin)

Design

• Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Steve Krug)
• The Design of Everyday Things (Donald Norman)

People

• Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister)
• Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering (Frederick Brooks Jr.)
• How Would You Move Mount Fuji? (William Poundstone)

Our favorites

• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Richard P. Feynman)
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Eliezer Yudkowsky)