Mark Twain once said that a classic novel is one that many people want to have read, but few want to take the time to actually read. The same could be said of "classic" programming books. Periodically over on Stack Overflow (and in many other programming forums) the question comes up about what books are good for programmers to read. The question has been asked and answered several times, in several different ways. The same group of books always seems to rise to the top, so it's worth it to take a look at these books to see what everyone is talking about. - Jeroen Van Goey