Y Hacker News Books

Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently? ↗

The books people recommended

2017-01-15 · 670 points · 186 comments · 57 books named by at least one person here and at least 3 people overall. The number on the left is how many people named it in this thread.

  1. 8

    Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

    Harold Abelson

    8 here · 316 all-time · #2 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 742 ratings on Amazon
  2. 7

    Code

    Charles Petzold

    7 here · 147 all-time · #12 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 2,787 ratings on Amazon
  3. 6

    Gödel, Escher, Bach

    Douglas Hofstadter

    6 here · 347 all-time · #1 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 2,713 ratings on Amazon
  4. 6

    The Mythical Man-Month

    Frederick Brooks Jr.

    6 here · 137 all-time · #13 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,811 ratings on Amazon
  5. 6The Elements of Computing Systems

    The Elements of Computing Systems

    Nisan and Schocken

    6 here · 58 all-time · #65 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 416 ratings on Amazon
  6. 6

    The Algorithm Design Manual

    Steven S. Skiena

    6 here · 43 all-time · #111 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 597 ratings on Amazon
  7. 5

    Deep Learning

    Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, Aaron Courville

    5 here · 47 all-time · #94 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 2,395 ratings on Amazon
  8. 5Engineering a Compiler

    Engineering a Compiler

    Cooper & Torczon

    5 here · 10 all-time · #687 overall

  9. 5Writing Efficient Programs

    Writing Efficient Programs

    Jon Bentley

    5 here · 8 all-time · #881 overall

  10. 4The Annotated Turing

    The Annotated Turing

    Charles Petzold

    4 here · 25 all-time · #235 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 399 ratings on Amazon
  11. 4Algorithms to Live By

    Algorithms to Live By

    Brian Christian

    4 here · 19 all-time · #330 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 6,632 ratings on Amazon
  12. 4Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming

    Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming

    Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi

    4 here · 16 all-time · #409 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.2 out of 5, 37 ratings on Amazon
  13. 3

    Algorithms

    Robert Sedgewick

    3 here · 49 all-time · #89 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 876 ratings on Amazon
  14. 3Quantum Computing since Democritus

    Quantum Computing since Democritus

    Scott Aaronson

    3 here · 20 all-time · #319 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 287 ratings on Amazon
  15. 3The Effective Engineer

    The Effective Engineer

    Edmond Lau

    3 here · 17 all-time · #381 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 164 ratings on Amazon
  16. 3Hacking

    Hacking

    Jon Erickson

    3 here · 14 all-time · #461 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 1,602 ratings on Amazon
  17. 3The Go Programming Language

    The Go Programming Language

    Donovan & Kernighan

    3 here · 10 all-time · #653 overall

  18. 3Type-driven development with Idris

    Type-driven development with Idris

    Edwin Brady

    3 here · 4 all-time · #1892 overall

  19. 3The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System
  20. 2

    Programming Pearls

    Jon Bentley

    2 here · 35 all-time · #145 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 402 ratings on Amazon
  21. 2Introduction to the Theory of Computation

    Introduction to the Theory of Computation

    Michael Sipser

    2 here · 18 all-time · #363 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 600 ratings on Amazon
  22. 2The Master Algorithm

    The Master Algorithm

    Pedro Domingos

    2 here · 15 all-time · #432 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 1,752 ratings on Amazon
  23. 2Elements of Programming

    Elements of Programming

    Alexander Stepanov, Paul McJones

    2 here · 9 all-time · #742 overall

  24. 2The Art of Multiprocessor Programming

    The Art of Multiprocessor Programming

    Shavit & Herlihy

    2 here · 6 all-time · #1214 overall

  25. 2Practical Foundations for Programming Languages

    Practical Foundations for Programming Languages

    Bob Harper

    2 here · 4 all-time · #1740 overall

  26. 1

    Designing Data-Intensive Applications

    Martin Kleppmann

    1 here · 104 all-time · #24 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 5,595 ratings on Amazon
  27. 1The Goal

    The Goal

    Eliyahu M. Goldratt

    1 here · 70 all-time · #49 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 4,661 ratings on Amazon
  28. 1

    The Phoenix Project

    Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford

    1 here · 67 all-time · #56 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 14,975 ratings on Amazon
  29. 1

    Peopleware

    Tom DeMarco

    1 here · 62 all-time · #59 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,189 ratings on Amazon
  30. 1

    How to Solve It

    George Polya

    1 here · 42 all-time · #115 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,615 ratings on Amazon
  31. 1Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

    Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

    Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig

    1 here · 29 all-time · #195 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 664 ratings on Amazon
  32. 1

    High Performance Browser Networking

    Ilya Grigorik

    1 here · 22 all-time · #281 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 213 ratings on Amazon
  33. 1The Practice of Programming

    The Practice of Programming

    Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike

    1 here · 16 all-time · #398 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 176 ratings on Amazon
  34. 1Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction

    Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction

    Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto

    1 here · 13 all-time · #505 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 641 ratings on Amazon
  35. 1Grokking Algorithms

    Grokking Algorithms

    Aditya Y. Bhargava

    1 here · 12 all-time · #535 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 1,557 ratings on Amazon
  36. 1Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby

    Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby

    Sandi Metz

    1 here · 12 all-time · #537 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 521 ratings on Amazon
  37. 1Machine Learning

    Machine Learning

    Tom Mitchell

    1 here · 11 all-time · #580 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 551 ratings on Amazon
  38. 1Quantum Mechanics

    Quantum Mechanics

    Leonard Susskind

    1 here · 11 all-time · #604 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 2,607 ratings on Amazon
  39. 1The Design of Design

    The Design of Design

    Frederick P. Brooks

    1 here · 9 all-time · #754 overall

  40. 1What If?

    What If?

    Randall Munroe

    1 here · 8 all-time · #813 overall

  41. 1The Cathedral and the Bazaar

    The Cathedral and the Bazaar

    Eric S. Raymond

    1 here · 7 all-time · #949 overall

  42. 1Programming in Scala

    Programming in Scala

    Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon, Bill Venners

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1255 overall

  43. 1C in Depth

    C in Depth

    Jon Skeet

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1265 overall

  44. 1Principles of Program Analysis

    Principles of Program Analysis

    Nielson & Nielson

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1462 overall

  45. 1Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow

    Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow

    Aurélien Géron

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1512 overall

  46. 1Zero Bugs and Program Faster

    Zero Bugs and Program Faster

    Kate Thompson

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1650 overall

  47. 1Modern Compiler Implementation in C

    Modern Compiler Implementation in C

    Andrew Appel

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1739 overall

  48. 1Algorithms in a Nutshell

    Algorithms in a Nutshell

    O'Reilly

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1741 overall

  49. 1The Dragon Book

    The Dragon Book

    Alfred V. Aho, Jeffrey D. Ullman, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1742 overall

  50. 1Good Math

    Good Math

    Mark Chu-Carroll

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1806 overall

  51. 1Paradigms of AI Programming

    Paradigms of AI Programming

    Peter Norvig

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1807 overall

  52. 1xv6

    xv6

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1916 overall

  53. 1Grammar of Graphics

    Grammar of Graphics

    Leland Wilkinson

    1 here · 3 all-time · #1988 overall

  54. 1Understanding Computation

    Understanding Computation

    Tom Stuart

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2065 overall

  55. 1Internetworking with TCP/IP

    Internetworking with TCP/IP

    Douglas Comer

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2184 overall

  56. 1Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks

    Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks

    Paul Butcher

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2185 overall

  57. 1Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations

    Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations

    Robert Austin

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2186 overall