Reading is good for your brain
The Bookshelf
Handcrafted CSS
This is the most modern CSS book out there right now. It covers using CSS3 in a progressive enhancement style to do very cool things in modern browsers and perfectly acceptable things in older browsers. The book works on the same website as an example throughout the book which gives it a nice consistent feel. Dan has a great casual-yet-masterful style full of humor and can’t miss information. I couldn’t agree more, working on the web is a craft, and the best of us sweat the details. Optionally comes with a DVD video.
The Design of Everyday Things
If any of the books on this page should be required reading, it’s this one. Donald intentionally doesn’t use computers or the web as examples in the book, but every concept presented has clear connections with the concepts of web design. How do you know how to operate a device, even when you’ve never seen or touched it even once before? It’s because of affordable, in other words, things do what they look like they are going to do. This book is just a fun read, especially all the examples of really good and really poor designs.
Web Form Design
Does something as niche as the design of web forms deserve its own book? Yes; yes it does. Forms power the interactivity of the web. They are absolutely everywhere and they stand between us and doing what we want to do on the web. But all too often, the usability of forms sucks. There is so much useful information in this book on making forms better, it blows my mind.
Learning jQuery 1.3
jQuery 1.4 is out now, but that doesn’t make the information in this book totally obsolete. I still think Learning jQuery is the best and most “readable” of all the jQuery books. I read the first edition nearly in it’s entirety on a long flight, knowing almost nothing about jQuery, and when I got home I sprinted to the computer to get started playing with this stuff. If you are a web designer who doesn’t touch JavaScript, you should start, jQuery should be what you play with first, and this book can help you get started. Great for beginners, but by the end is doing some pretty darn advanced stuff as well.
The Elements of
Typographic Style
This book is a masterpiece; the Bible of typography. It is an entertaining read, despite tackling some seriously tedious and by most regards boring material. Robert is a master of both his trades, the history of type and modern practice. There is no lack of practical information here, you will be given plenty of do-this don’t-do-this information that will certainly make you a better typographer.
Perhaps the best part of the book is successfully it eats its own dog food. Almost every example is expertly weaved into the layout of the book itself.
Don’t Make Me Think!
It’s funny that we need a book like this, as web designers, to remind us to use our own common sense when designing. There are so many patterns that get ingrained into us on how websites work that we often forget simple things that would make life for our visitors so much easier. This book is short and sweet, which is part of what makes it so great and worth every cent.
Thinking with Type
This book is loaded with helpful advice about typography. It gracefully talks about type in print form and web form, which is welcome. My favorite parts about this book are the examples where Ellen takes a bit of content and lays it out in many different ways so you can see how each feels. That, and the “type crimes” scattered throughout the book, which are both funny and helpful.
Designing the Obvious
Where Don’t Make Me Think talks about web design in general, Designing the Obvious focuses on web applications. Robert is an experienced master of user interface in web applications and this book does a fantastic job of sharing practical advice in making yours better.
Digging Into WordPress
Shameless plug for my own book. Jeff Starr and I take an intermediate-level look at WordPress and what it can do for you. We cover everything from setting things up right, to theme building, to using WordPress as a CMS, to SEO and maintenance best practices.