We all learn programming in different ways. Some prefer taking courses while others prefer reading books. When it comes to reading, there are folks that prefer reading online or via their Kindle or tablet while others desire paperbacks or hardcovers. There are people who enjoy purchasing books and many who will borrow from their local library. Growing up, I would visit the local bookstore daily and read technical books in their café for hours. I even remember the first programming book my parents bought me!

If you want to become a confident web developer, you must spend more time with other expert developers. The easiest way to get started is by studying their best work. The first step I recommend is to read books written by them.

Books allow you to master a topic in a very short period of time. Furthermore, they allow experts to transfer their knowledge to you in a very convenient and accessible way. As a result, reading a handful of books can quickly accelerate your expertise, and therefore increase your competitive advantage.

By focusing your study on books that are bestsellers, have top ratings, or are highly regarded by other experts, you can rest assured the knowledge is worth learning.

With that said, I've put together this comprehensive guide that captures the best books available for you to learn web development, regardless if you’re a beginner or advanced developer. These books come in different formats, can be purchased online or in-store, or may be found at your local library.

These books also make great gifts for family, friends and colleagues. If you think a book you’re currently reading would make for an excellent gift for the holidays or birthdays, consider purchasing another copy of the book for them. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more details.

HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites by Jon Duckett is a full-color book using infographics and photography to engage its readers while describing HTML and CSS in layman's terms, so that anyone can understand and relate to the material. The organization of the book also offers developers the flexibility to read the book end-to-end or only particular chapters of interest. This resource will be one to keep on your shelf for frequent reference.

A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS takes the ultimate learn-by-doing approach. With an emphasis on practicing programmatic concepts, the chapters are paired with free interactive online exercises, preparing the developer to build a website. The book is written for beginners using layman's terms, coding examples, and graphics, so that anyone can learn HTML & CSS. Also, experienced developers can keep their skills fresh from the practice problems alone. 

If you're a visual learner, then this book is for you! With Head First HTML and CSS, you'll learn HTML and CSS using their visually-rich format designed for the way your brain works. Leveraging the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, Head First ensures you won't forget how to program in HTML and CSS.

Need to learn HTML and CSS fast? HTML and CSS: Visual Quickstart Guide teaches its readers using a visual format, friendly prose, and step-by-step, action-based instructions, so that you're building a website quickly and correctly. Throughout the book, the author covers all of HTML and covers the key concepts of HTML5 and CSS techniques.

Even if you only know HTML fundamentals, Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript empowers its developers to build interactive, data-driven websites, covering PHP and MySQL along with JavaScript, jQuery, CSS, and HTML5. The author does a great job at explaining each core technology along with how these technologies work together. At the end of the book, you will have built a fully functional social networking site, using any development stack of your choice. 

The Joy of PHP 5th edition will take you from a complete PHP beginner to someone who can confidently read, write, and modify PHP scripts to make dynamic websites. This book provides a great introduction to PHP and is a great companion to the other PHP books mentioned in this article. By the end of the book, you'll realize that PHP isn't that scary to learn.

​Murach's PHP and MySQL equips you to develop database-driven websites using PHP and MySQL, complete with sample applications and chapter exercises. You'll build your first PHP applications that conform to the MVC pattern. After mastering PHP, you'll learn how to design, create, access, and maintain databases. Lastly, you'll explore how to secure and protect your websites when allowing users and other sites to interact with your site. 

Head First PHP & MySQL is the ultimate learning guide to building dynamic, database-driven websites using PHP and MySQL. Packed with plenty of visuals, exercises, quizzes, puzzles, and other interactive features, you won't forget what you've learned! You'll also build complex projects, like a mailing list, a job board, and an online dating site, to help you harness the power of server-side programming in a variety of contexts. 

A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript helps you become fluent in JavaScript by providing bite-size chapters that are easy to digest and twenty free interactive exercises at the end of each chapter, so that you can practice what you've learned. This book is perfect for people new to programming since the author walks you through everything you must know about JavaScript using plain English, so that you can confidently build interactive websites.

A Software Engineer Learns HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery guides you through the author's professional process of writing a large-scale, standards based, feature-rich web-application for the first time. This book is intended for anyone with an awareness of HTML and programming concepts as it walks you through the fundamentals of HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery. Based on the author's professional experience, you'll also learn real-world best practices.

In JavaScript: The Good Parts, JavaScript expert Douglas Crockford reveals all the elegant (and not so pretty) parts of JavaScript. If you want to develop build beautiful, elegant, and lightweight applications or websites, this book is an absolute must! 

In Learning React, author Chinnathambi brings his fresh, clear, and very personable writing style to help you understand the fundamentals of React and how to use it to build really awesome apps. If you want a beginner-friendly and approachable book on React, this is it!

React Quickly is for anyone who wants to learn React fast. Assuming you're comfortable with JavaScript development, this practical book teaches you the key concepts of React using many examples and tutorials.You'll also explore a variety of different projects and build a large main project throughout the book.

With React Up & Running, Facebook web developer Stoyan Stefanov teaches you how to build, use, and organize components into maintainable, large-scale apps. Once you understand how React works, you'll build upon your existing JavaScript skills to build a complete custom app that helps users rate wines and keep notes.

Learning React will teach you how to build efficient user interfaces with React that can quickly display data changes on large-scale, data-driven websites without page reloads. You'll deep dive into how React runs in the browser and explore React’s component life cycle to load data better and improve user interface performance. By mastering React components with this practical guide, you’ll fully understand the power and utility behind React.

Pro AngularJS shows you how to build applications that are smaller, faster, and with a lighter resource footprint. It begins by describing the Model-View-Controller pattern and the many benefits of code separation. Starting from the nuts-and-bolts and building up to the most advanced and sophisticated features of AngularJS, the author goes in-depth to allow for mastery of AngularJS while including common problems and details of how to avoid them.

AngularJS Web Application Development Cookbook will show you how to harness the full power of the AngularJS framework by taking you from a beginner to advanced user of Angular. This book assumes you have an understanding of the basics of AngularJS, and experience with JavaScript. Using a clear problem-solving approach, the author provides code samples and explanations of components you should be using in your development. By the end of this book, you'll be able to confidently build high-performing and scaleable production applications.

Angular 2 Cookbook is for developers who are skilled with JavaScript and are looking to dive into Angular. This book describes all the most complicated Angular concepts while introducing its best practices. It also explains how to build applications faster; furthermore, the author took the time to cover testing and performance optimization. By the end of this book, you'll have a strong understanding of the Angular framework.

AngularJS by Example walks you through examples of how to use AngularJS to create your own real-world applications. Before starting this book, make sure you are familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Once you dive in, you'll be creating multiple applications to demonstrate the effectiveness of Angular and its key concepts. By the end of the book, you'll have a strong foundation to build and test complex web applications.

Practical Node.js is your roadmap to learning how to build a wide range of scalable real-world web applications using a professional development toolkit.  The author takes you from installing all the necessary modules to writing full-stack web applications while harnessing the power of a varied collection of standards and frameworks. The book also covers how to deploy to Heroku and AWS, daemonize apps, and write REST APIs. By the end of this book, you'll build full-stack real-world Node.js apps from scratch, and also discover how to write your own Node.js modules and publish them on NPM.

Pro Express.js is for the reader who wants to quickly get up-to-speed with Express.js, the flexible Node.js framework. This book assumes familiarity with Node.js scripts and npm package installations. The author clearly explains how to start developing with Express.js and then delves into its API reference. Each aspect of the Express.js API is explained clearly with a simple exercise to demonstrate its usage. You’ll also dive into critical development concepts, complex modules, and additional frameworks. Finally, you'll build real-world apps including a REST API, Todo App, and Instagram gallery.

Node.js the Right Way shows you how to write compact, robust, fast, networked Node applications that scale. You'll write asynchronous, non-blocking code using Node's style and patterns. You'll cluster and load balance your services with Node core features and third-party tools. You'll work with many protocols, creating RESTful web services, TCP socket clients and servers, and more. The author also shows you how to test your code's functionality and performance under load. By the end of the book, you will have developed small, fast, low-profile, and useful network applications.

Web Development with Node & Express shows you how to build dynamic web applications with Express. In this practical guide, the author teaches you the fundamentals through the development of a fictional application that exposes a public website and a RESTful API. You’ll also learn web architecture best practices to help you build single-page, multi-page, and hybrid web apps with Express.

Ruby on Rails Tutorial provides integrated tutorials not only for Rails, but also for the essential Ruby, HTML, CSS, and SQL skills you’ll need when developing web applications. The author guides you through the development of three example applications of increasing sophistication, focusing on the fundamental techniques in web development needed for virtually any kind of application. By the end of this book, you will have master Ruby on Rails.

Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby covers a set of Ruby-focused best practices for building Ruby applications, all illustrated with extended examples that can be downloaded from their companion Web site. This book is perfect for any level of experience with Ruby. Whether you’re a novice or advanced Ruby developer, this book is packed with golden nuggets that will make you a better developer.

The Ruby Programming Language begins with a quick-start tutorial to the language, and then describes the language in detail from the bottom-up, covering its rich API thoroughly with heavily commented examples. It is written for experienced programmers who are new to Ruby, and for current Ruby programmers who want to deepen their expertise of the language.

In Eloquent Ruby, the author shows you the “Ruby way” of programming. The book starts small, answering tactical questions focused on a single statement, method, test, or bug. Then the author addresses bigger questions related to building methods and classes prior to explaining advanced concepts and projects. Throughout the book, you will have learned the ins and outs of Rub development. By the end, you will have gained the fluency needed to write great Ruby code.

Python Crash Course is a fast-paced, thorough introduction to Python that will have you writing programs, solving problems, and making things that work in no time. You’ll learn about basic programming concepts and practice writing clean and readable code with exercises for each topic. You’ll develop interactive programs and explore how to properly test your code. By the end of the book, you will have created three substantial projects: a Space Invaders–inspired arcade game, data visualizations with Python’s super-handy libraries, and a simple web app you can deploy online using Django.

The Self-Taught Programmer, based on the author’s experience of landing his first software engineering position, teaches you how to code in Python, the fundamentals of Computer Science, and everything else you need to know about programming professionally. The book serves as a roadmap, guiding you from writing your first Python program to passing your first technical interview.

Python Programming illustrates the essentials of Computer Science through Python. The author teaches the fundamental principles of design and programming that can be applied in any language or computing environment. Updated to reflect the new changes in Python and the addition of several graphical examples, this book achieves an excellent balance between Computer Science theory and practical programming.

Hello Web App, written by a designer and aimed at non-programmers, teaches the basics of web app programming using Python and Django. The tutorial uses down-to-earth, friendly, and jargon-free writing to walk you through choosing a project, setting up a database, creating your website, building features, and launching your app so you can start working with real customers and users. By the end of the book, you’ll see how easy it is to build your own dynamic websites.

Head First Java introduces object-oriented programming and Java in a visually compelling and playful way with puzzles, strong visuals, and more! You'll learn everything from the fundamentals to advanced Java topics with no topic left uncovered. It's unlike any other Java book you've ever read.

Beginning Programming with Java For Dummies, 4th Edition is a comprehensive guide covering basic development concepts and techniques with step-by-step instruction and detailed explanations. You'll learn what goes into a program, how to put the pieces together, how to deal with challenges, and how to make it work. The new Fourth Edition has been updated to align with Java 8 and is the perfect resource for new and experienced Java developers.

Java: The Complete Reference, Ninth Edition explains how to develop, compile, debug, and run Java programs. The author covers every aspect of the Java language, including its API library. The book also demonstrates Java in action with real-world examples and the latest features of Java SE 8.

Core Java® has long been recognized as the leading, no-nonsense tutorial and reference for experienced programmers who want to write robust Java code for real-world applications. Updated extensively to include new Java SE 8 features, idioms, and best practices, it contains hundreds of example programs—all carefully crafted for easy understanding and practical applicability.

Don’t Make Me Think Revisited reexamines the principles that made Don’t Make Me Think a classic–with updated examples and a new chapter on mobile usability. And it’s still short, profusely illustrated, and best of all–fun to read. Hundreds of thousands of web designers and developers around the world have relied on usability guru Steve Krug’s guide to help them understand the principles of intuitive navigation and information design. This book is required reading for all web designers and developers!

The Design of Everyday Things shows the possibility behind creating good, usable design. The book emphasizes the importance of guiding the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time. The book reveals how and why some products, including web sites, satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.

Burn Your Portfolio teaches the real-world practices, professional do's and don'ts, and unwritten rules of business that most creative professionals only learn after putting in years of experience on the job. The book showcases the advice the author has collected over the last decade from the personal successes and failures he has faced running his own agency. By the end of this practical guide, you’ll understand that it takes more than a design school education and a killer portfolio to succeed in a creative career.

The Web Designer’s Idea Book, Volume 3 features more than 650 examples to inspire any web designer. Arranged thematically, this book dives into the important topics like technology, design styles, elements, site types and site structure. This new volume will empower you to select the best platform for your project with its detailed discussion of various content management systems. The author provides you with the latest in themes, styles and trends you need to keep your projects relevant in the fast-paced and every-changing world of web design, making it an indispensable reference.

You’ve read about the different books out there to learn web development.

Now it’s time to choose one.

The first step?

Leave a comment to let me know which book you're going to read first.

Are you currently reading one of the books on this list? If so, which one?

Which book would you recommend to family and friends?

Either way, leave a quick comment below right now.

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