For a variety of topics, all tried and tested.
- The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 1-4A (Donald E. Knuth)
- Big Java (Cay S. Horstmann)
- The C Programming Language (Kernighan and Ritchie) – a classic! Ritchie was actually the one who originally designed and implemented the language.
- The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition (Bjarne Stroustrup)
- The Scheme Programming Language (R. Kent Dybvig)
- Operating System Concepts (Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne)
- Database System Concepts (Silberschatz, Korth, Sudarshan)
- Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (2nd Edition) (Aho, Lam, Sethi, Ullman)
- Computer Organization and Design, Fourth Edition: The Hardware/Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Patterson, Hennessy)
- Computer Architecture, Fifth Edition: A Quantitative Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Patterson, Hennessy)
- Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C (2nd Edition) (Foley, van Dam, Feiner, Hughes)
- Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers) (Ruby, Thomas, Hansson)