These are books considered most influential for programmers from this StackOverflow thread.

• Why on Github?
• Original thread
• Influential Books List (by topic)
  • Algorithms
  • Design and Refactoring
  • Developer Best Practices
  • Driven Designs
  • Experiance Transfer
  • History and Culture
  • JUnit
  • Language/Environment Specific
  • Personal Development
  • Philosophy
  • Scheme
  • Software Project Management
  • Theories and Fundamentals of Computer Systems
  • UI/UX
  • Web Applications and Publishing
  • Z: Singles/Uncategorized

Cause SO is cathedral, Github is bazzar ;)

Long answer: I frequently visit above thread. Over the time, such an active thread is closed, links to book sites are removed and I have to copy/paste/search everytime I go there. I am afraid they might remove it entirely.

So, the list is preserved here :)

What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

If you could go back in time and tell yourself to read a specific book at the beginning of your career as a developer, which book would it be?

I expect this list to be varied and to cover a wide range of things.

1. Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest & Stein
2. The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth

1. Introduction to Functional Programming by Richard Bird
2. Design Patterns by the Gang of Four
3. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler
4. Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
5. Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael C. Feathers
6. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler
7. Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices by Robert C. Martin
8. Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications by Grady Booch
9. Object Thinking by Dr. David West
10. Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce
11. Refactoring to Patterns by Joshua Kerievsky
12. About Face - The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper
13. Framework Design Guidelines by Brad Abrams

1. Code Complete (2nd edition) by Steve McConnell
2. The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
3. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Sussman and Abelson (free pdf)
4. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin
5. Practices of an Agile Developer by Venkat Subramaniam and Andy Hunt
6. The Practice of Programming by Kernighan and Pike
7. Writing Solid Code by Steve Maguire
8. Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# by Robert C. Martin
9. No Bugs! by David Thielen
10. The Productive Programmer by Neil Ford

1. Test-Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck (free PDF)
2. Domain Driven Designs by Eric Evans

1. Coders at Work by Peter Seibel
2. The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World by Christopher Duncan
3. Masterminds of Programming by Federico Biancuzzi
4. Best Software Writing I by Joel Spolsky

1. The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond
2. The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold
3. Masters of Doom by David Kushner
4. The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick
5. The Art of Intrusion by Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon
6. The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
7. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy (free ebook)

1. JUnit in Action by Petar Tahchiev

1. The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
2. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C (2nd Edition) by Foley, Dam, Feiner, Hughes
3. Effective C++ by Scott Meyers
4. More Effective C++ by Scott Meyers
5. Modern C++ Design by Andrei Alexandrescu
6. The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition) by Stroustrup
7. Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas
8. CLR via C# by Jeffrey Richter
9. Design Patterns in C# by Steve Metsker
10. Effective Java 2nd edition by Joshua Bloch
11. Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel
12. JavaScript - The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford
13. Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby by why the lucky stiff (free PDF)
14. Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation by Adele Goldberg
15. Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens
16. Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case studies in Common Lisp by Peter Norvig (free ebook)

1. Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian
2. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware by Andy Hunt
3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
4. The Passionate Programmer by Chad Fowler

1. Computational Beauty of Nature by Gary William Flake
2. Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham
3. The Inmates Are Running The Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper
4. The Elements of Computing Systems by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken(free ebook)
5. The Tao of Programming by Geoffrey James (free ebook)
6. The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
7. Things That Make Us Smart by Donald Norman
8. The Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu

1. The Little Schemer by Matthias Felleisen and Daniel P. Friedman
2. The Seasoned Schemer by Matthias Felleisen and Daniel P. Friedman
3. How To Solve It by George Polya (free PDF)

1. The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks
2. Peopleware by Demarco and Lister
3. Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art(https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/software-estimation-demystifying/0735605351/)) by Steve McConnel
4. The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management by Tom DeMarco
5. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky

1. Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

1. Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey D. Ullman
2. Foundations of Programming by Karl Seguin (free PDF)
3. Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tanenbaum
4. Computer Systems - A Programmer's Perspective by Bryant and O'Hallaron
5. Computability by N. J. Cutland
6. CODE by Charles Petzold
7. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs by Niklaus Wirth (free PDF)

1. Getting Real by 37 Signals (free PDF])
2. Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing (free ebook)

1. Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
2. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman
3. The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
4. Writing Secure Code (2nd Edition) by Michael Howard