A while back I recommended ten books I thought were fairly
good/essential reading for programmers. They're all fairly basic
material; the only one that's even moderately challenging is the
Algorithm Design Manual. And that one's not too bad.  I thought
I'd talk about some other books I'm in the process of reading
(and in some cases, struggling through). I haven't finished most
of them yet, but they're all exceptional.  These are books that
are important to me. Not in the Lewis Carroll or Herman Melville
sense; they're not cherished fictional works, or even fictional
works that are just thick enough to prop up the couch. For the
most part they're technical books. But each of them is a book
that I return to regularly as I try to figure out — well, how
stuff "works".  There are more than ten, obviously, but I
decided to cap this list at ten books just to have a shot at
finishing this essay before the end of the year. (Note: it's now
Jan 22nd 2005, so I didn't make it. Close, though!)  Without
further ado...  #1: