C Programming Language, 2nd Edition

Few programming books carry the authority of this one, simply because one of its authors invented the language it teaches. Dennis Ritchie created C, and together with Brian Kernighan, he wrote what became the definitive reference for the language — often just called “K&R” by generations of programmers who learned from it. What makes the book remarkable isn’t just its authority but its economy: in just 272 pages, it covers C’s syntax, semantics, and idioms with a precision that later, longer books have rarely matched. The famous “hello, world” program that opens the book has become something close to a universal first step in learning to code, a small testament to how influential this text has been. Even decades after its second edition, the book remains relevant, partly because C itself underlies so much of modern computing, and partly because the writing is simply that good — clear, unsentimental, and respectful of the reader’s intelligence. For anyone who wants to understand C from its actual source, this is still the place to start.

Author:
Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie