There are hundreds of great books and courses out there! Here are a few recommendations from me and my peers. You do not have to read these in order! Pick and choose the ones that fit your needs.

NOTE: I'll try to keep this up to date as I learn of more great resources. Consider it a living list.

All books and courses cost money, unless otherwise indicated.

Programming Culture

These books give you insight into how the software development industry actually works.

• "Dreaming In Code" by Scott Rosenberg <-- Offers an excellent look at the nature of real-life projects through the story of one fated software project. Every programmer should read this!

• "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric S. Raymond <-- The watershed essay that defined the entire Open Source movement, along with many other insightful essays about open source software development. [Free to read online.]

• "The New Hacker's Dictionary" by Eric S. Raymond <-- A hilarious compendium of programmer culture slang, witticisms, and legend. [Also free to read online at The Jargon File.]

• "Turing's Cathedral" by George Dyson <-- A fantastic journey through the origins of computer science.

• "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold

General Knowledge

• "Computational Fairy Tales" by Jeremy Kubrica <-- a whimsical and memorable look at data structures, algorithms, and the concepts behind algorithmic efficiency. Also a TON of fun! [Free to read online]

• "Game Programming Patterns" by Robert Nystrom <-- A hilarious and insightful must-read for any language. [Free to read online.]

• "Think Like A Programmer" by V. Anton Spraul <-- Uses C++, but good for any language!

• "Hacker's Delight" by Hank Warren <-- Especially for the math nuts. Contains many nerdfully delightful algorithms written in machine code. Surprisingly, this is actually a great "deep dive" style entry into machine-level programming.)

Python

• "Automate The Boring Stuff with Python" by Al Sweigart

• "Python Crash Course" by Eric Matthes

• "The Complete Python Course" by Jose Salvatierra and Rob Percival (Udemy)

C++ and C

• "Beginning C++ Programming" by Tim Buchalka (Udemy)

• "C++ Primer" by Stanley B. Lippman <-- I haven't personally read this, but many C++ devs highly recommend it. DO NOT GET PRIMER PLUS...that's a different book, and not a trustworthy one.

• "Learn C The Hard Way" by Zed Shaw <-- Great once you've learned at least one other language.

Linux

• "The Linux Command Line" by William Shotts [Free to read online.]

• "How Linux Works" by Brian Ward