Favourite 10 books

The website www.bookpool.com has collected from various authors about their 10 favourite computer books in the past 10 years. The result is a pretty interesting list of books.

Though the technology has grown very fast and lot more new things have been introduced in the past decade, thanks to the internet, most of the favourite books are traditional ones. Some of these are my favourites too. So here is my list (with the original author ranking in brackets).

1. The C Programming Language, 2nd edition - Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie (Rank 7): This is my favourite book, the first and my most read C book. I dont remember how I got referred to this book, but when I started learning C back in school, this is the book I started. Though people used to say that it is a complex book, I feel this is the simplest, yet concise book on C. I remember to have read this book atleast twice in full. I would strongly recommend every beginner to read this, as it will lay a strong foundation to programming with them.
2. Writing Solid Code - Steve Maguire (Not ranked) : This is another fantastic programmers, especially for programmers. The author was a Test team lead with Microsoft and he explains the various methodologies of writing code for the programmers to fortify it - so that it will be easy for them trace and fix the bugs. I dont remember whether I read this book completely, but it was very helpful for me then on during all my development, till date. I am sure it will be a very valuable book for any system side programmer.
3. The Design of UNIX Operating System - Maurice J Bach (Not ranked) : This is like learning UNIX the actual way. Though this book talks mainly about UNIX, it is still applicable to the modern day Linux operating system. This book is like the K&R for C.
4. Art of Computer Programming - Donald Knuth (Rank 8) : This one is like bible in computer programming. Though I would recommend this book, I myself havent read this one. This is a collection of 7 books (NOT sure whether all have been published) which will cover the in-out of computer programming. I tried reading this when I was in school, but it was too much for me that time. Probably I will read it sometime soon.
5. The C++ Programming Language - Stroustoup (Not ranked) : A good book on C++ and object oriented programming. Though this book also holds the credit of being written by the inventor of the same programming language like K&R-C , I feel it did not reach the level that K&R-C reached. I have read some chapters in this book, little voluminous but will be very useful for any object oriented programmers.

Apart from these, I would also recommend Computer Networks (Andrew S. Tanenbaum) and Operating Systems (Harvey M. Deitel) for general computer concepts and Code Complete (Steve McConnell - Rank 6) for programmers.

-- edited on 7/7/06 --

I would also recommend Design patterns: Elements of reusable object oriented software for C++ enthusiasts.