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the #bookstobuy club

by mikestreety

I love the written word, be it on the advanced technological screen, or the old fashioned pen and paper. With my recent shopping spree on web books, I thought it would be good if I blogged and recommended my five favourite printed resources (books to you and me) and in return, try and get others to do the same.

After completing the blog post I then thought it a good idea to encourage other bloggers to join the (now dubbed) #bookstobuy club. With so many hardback manuals, paper-bound wizardary and printed tutorials out there, its hard to know which books are worth getting.

So, if you want to know what literature helped your favourite front-end nail his CSS3, or how that spectacular designer got her eye in with just the help of a book, I have tried to collate just that information.

So whip out your wallets and lets love literature.

The books below are grouped (roughly) by subject. I’m not going to tell you who suggested each book, as it shouldn’t matter. All you need to know is each of these books have been recommended by brilliant, talented and trusted web-related indiviuals.

But if you really must know, The contributors so far are:

If you would like to add your favourite books, or vouch for any one the ones already listed – leave a comment at the end!
Title/Link Publisher Topics
Why you should buy this book
Javascript: The Definitive Guide O’Reilly Javascript, jQuery
this book, on its own, got me into jQuery. Made me realise the most complex of animations and effects are just a .animate() away.
jQuery – Novice to Ninja Sitepoint Javascript
Pretty much my javascript guide book
SMACSS @snooka CSS
This books gives insight to a system on how you can write your CSS to make a more manageable easy to use for your sites. I just still need to implement it. I cheated here as it’s an eBook.
The CSS Anthology Sitepoint CSS
A brilliant book that gives you the low down on all the CSS selectors and what they do and cover. An amazing reference book the just right for sitting on your desk.
The Book of CSS3: A Developers Guide to the Future of Web Design No Starch Press CSS3
I’ve yet to finish this book but what I have read has been fantastic. So much good stuff resides within. Peter Gasston (the author) does a great job of explaining CSS3 and it’s many new selectors. He also shares what works & what doesn’t, what syntax to use to ensure what you’re working on works cross-browser, and best of all, it’s written in a friendly manner that doesn’t feel like you’re reading a technical book.
Stunning CSS3: A Project Based Guide to the Latest in CSS New Riders CSS, web design
A second book by Zoe Mickley Gillenwater but it’s another easily readable and incredibly useful book for a front end developer. Each chapter describes a practical example, for example, styling speech bubbles, responsive web design for a case study website, using pseudo-classes etc. I love this type of practical book!
HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions, A Web Standardistas’ Approach Friends of Ed HTML, CSS
by Christopher Murphy and Niklas Persson. A step-by-step guide to building hand-crafted websites with structured mark-up and CSS. I was really impressed with this book when I read it. It’s aimed more at web standards and web design beginners and students but I like the sequential HTML and CSS approach that the authors take.
Flexible Web Design New Riders CSS, web design, layout
by Zoe Mickley Gillenwater. Long before responsive web design was used as a term that embraced a variety of different methods for making your website responsive on different devices, there were liquid and elastic layouts. In this book, Zoe Mickley Gillenwater clearly explains how to create flexible layouts with CSS. I’d used fluid layouts on a few occasions before and this book really cemented my thoughts on the subject. It’s a great read!
Hard Boiled Web Design Five Simple Steps HTML, CSS
Another FSS book and another bible to me, this time though Andy Clarke covers all the front-end bases with topics such as HTML5 & CSS3, Media Queries and using new technologies today
Responsive Web Design A Book Apart HTML, CSS
Every A Book Apart book I’ve bought (read: all of them so far) has been an excellent resource with direct & concentrated knowledge within a small package. If you want to learn about (or even brush up on) responsive web design, you need this book on your shelf!
Introducing HTML5 New Riders HTML5, web development
by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. This is a great book if you are wondering where to start with HTML5. The authors have an easy knack of explaining each concept very clearly, from new HTML5 elements through to the geolocation API and more, and they seem to have a sense of humor. How else would you explain their ‘promotional’ photos?
Head First Mobile Web O’Rielly Mobile, CSS, HTML, JavaScript
A great book to help you understand how we can design (well dev) for mobile devie and what pitfalls you will encounter. It’s a great little (well  huge) book you can dip into or read from cover to cover.
Mobile First A Book Apart Mobile
A Book Apart make great little books. This from @lukew is a must read for the modern web designer.
HTML5 and CSS3 for the real world Sitepoint HTML5, CSS3, Semantics
This book educated me into the wonders of HTML5. It is what I have built this site and written this blog post. The things I learnt from the book have put me in good stead for the next few years.
PHP & MySQL Web Development Welling Thomson PHP/MySQL
This book was my first exposure to PHP, it got me building stuff quickly and with a purpose. Loved it.
Microformats Made Simple New Riders microformats, web development
by Emily Lewis. There are several approaches these days for adding semantic data to your HTML and I’m not quite sure where microformats stand in the grand scheme of things. However, this is a book that made a lot more sense to me than my previous reading on the same subject. It’s also a very practical book with nicely explained code examples.
The Smashing Magazine Books Smashing Magazine Everything
I bought the bundle (books one and two) and they are absolutely fantastic. Brilliant. They cover tons of topics and give you a good overview of so many topics. I have, in fact, just ordered the third book despite not even being halfway through the first. They are just teasers of topics, which allows you to gauge what that subject is and what you’re interests are.
A Practical Guide to Desiging for the Web (Votes x 2) Five Simple Steps Design & Layout
The first proper web design book I purchased, it covers a wide range of topics and has become a design bible for me.
Mark Boulton’s A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web. This was the first web design book that I read that wasn’t all about code and actually taught me a fair bit about design.
A Practical Guide to Designing with Data Five Simple Steps Design & Information
A brilliant book for anyone that’s ever had to present data in an understandable format (that’s pretty much all of us.) The clearest guide to making sense of all that ‘stuff.’
Understanding Comics Harper Design
Recommended originally in a post by Simon Collison, not only an interesting book to learn from but an absolute pleasure to read, the attention to detail and style of the book is like no other I’ve come across.
Universal Principles of Design Rockport Publishers Design
This book gave me a solid grounding in design principles and in my opinion is a must for anyone who calls themselves a designer. The format of this book (one design principle per spread) makes this book so easy to pick up and start learning from straight away. It’s the kind of book that you can just dip into and get what you need, although you will no doubt find that you can’t resist reading it cover to cover.
The Design of Everyday Things Basic Books User Experience
This book is highly regarded among the UX community and rightly so. This book shaped my outlook on how humans interact with various interfaces. It may not be about the web but what you learn from this book will make you a better designer.
Thinking with Type Princeton Architectural Press Typography
The web is content and most of that content is type, so you can’t be a good web designer without knowing a thing or two about typography. There are more in-depth typographical references out there however this book assumes no previous knowledge and will give you a solid understanding of the foundations of typography.
.net magazine Future Publishing HTML, CSS, PHP, General Knowledge
It goes without saying that this magazine has taught me an astonishing amount of things. The greatness it brings to life is good.
The Manual fiction Theory
More of an offline manual for design theory, this Manual is a beautiful book with 8 articles from different authors delving into design theory with advice on the way. The Manual is geared towards making you think rather than making you do!
How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul Adrian Shaughnessy Advice
An unexpected Christmas present from my girlfriend turned out to be a great read – far from a book about design but some great advice on how to deal with a variety of situations based on all sorts of experience.
Managing Oneself Harvard Business School Press Management, Careers
This book isn’t aimed at the self-employed. In fact this little book is full of advice that anyone would do well to keep in mind as they progress on their chosen career path. I noticed instant improvement in the way I worked with people after reading this book (in one sitting).

One Response to “the #bookstobuy club”

  1. mrqwest - February 22nd, 2012 at 12:34

    There’s some really incredible literature in this post. I really need to crack through my backlog of unread books and move onto some of these!

    Nice work Mike :)

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