AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript + CSS + DOM + XMLHttpRequest

Bulletproof Ajax, by Jeremy Keith, New Riders, Feb 2007. This guide reveals best practices for enhancing Web sites with Ajax. 216 pages.

Pragmatic Ajax: A Web 2.0 Primer, by Justin Gehtland, Ben Galbraith, and Dion Almaer, Pragmatic Bookshelf, Apr 2006. This shows you how to apply Ajax easily, exploring both fundamental technologies and the emerging frameworks that make it easy. 200 pages.

C#

C# in Depth, by Jon Skeet, Manning Publication, Apr 2008. This delves deeply into C# 2 and 3, explaining each feature and illustrating how to use it in real applications. 392 pages.

C# in a Nutshell, 4^thEd, by Joseph Albahari and Ben Albahari, O’Reilly and Associates, Jan 2010. A concise, thorough reference to C# as implemented in Microsoft’s Visual Studio, updated for Visual Studio 2010.

Head First C#, 2^ndEd, by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene, O’Reilly and Associates, May 2010. This teaches beginners how to use the C# language.

Learning C# 2008, 3^rdEd, by Jesse Liberty and Brian MacDonald, O’Reilly and Associates, Nov 2008. An entry-level guide to C#, updated to C# 2008. 692 pages.

CSS + HTML + xHTML

Bulletproof Web Design, 2^ndEd: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS, by Dan Cederholm, New Riders, Aug 2007. Outlines strategies for creating standards-based designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control. 312 pages.

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 3^rdEd, by Eric A. Meyer, O’Reilly and Associates, Nov 2006. A comprehensive CSS 2 reference and guide, updated for CSS 2.1, today’s prime CSS standard. Updated for IE 7, and includes info on positioning, lists and generated content, table layout, user interface, paged media, and more. Details each CSS property, how it interacts with other properties, and how to avoid common errors. By Eric Meyer, the CSS guru. 536 pages.

CSS Detective Guide: Tricks for Solving Tough CSS Mysteries, by Andy Budd, and Denise R. Jacobs New Riders, Apr 2010. Learn how to track clues, analyze the evidence, and get to the truth behind CSS mysteries causing unexpected layout problems.

CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions, 2^ndEd, by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll Friends of ED, Oct 2009. Learn the advanced CSS techniques you need to master CSS and to craft modern, standards compliant web pages. 300 pages.

CSS : The Missing Manual, 2^ndEd, by David Sawyer McFarland, O’Reilly and Associates, Sep 2009. Learn how to use CSS to create highly functional, professional looking, cross browser compatible sites: with clear explanations, real examples, and dozens of tutorials. 558 pages.

Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference, 3^rdEd, by Danny Goodman, O’Reilly and Associates, Dec 2006. A comprehensive dHTML reference book. 1307 pages.

Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design, by Dan Cederholm and Ethan Marcotte, O’Reilly and Associates, Aug 2009. A guide to using innovative and effective CSS techniques that make design easier while improving the end user’s experience. 240 pages.

Head First HTML & CSS, by Elisabeth Freeman and Eric Freeman, O’Reilly and Associates, Dec 2005. A starter book for those interested in web design. 658 pages.

Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to (X)HTML, StyleSheets, and Web Graphics, 3^rdEd, by Jennifer Niederst Robbins and Aaron Gustafson, O’Reilly and Associates, Jun 2007. A starter book for those interested in web design. 479 pages.

Stylin’ with CSS: A Designer’s Guide, by Charles Wyke-Smith, New Riders Publishing, December 2007. This teaches everything you need to know to start using CSS in your web development work, starting from the basics. 312 pages.

Design

Content Strategy for the Web, by Kristina Halvorson, New Riders, Aug 2009. This explains how to create and deliver useful, usable online content; this also shares best practices so you can get your next redesign right, on time, on budget. 192 pages.

Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, by Jenifer Tidwell, O’Reilly and Associates, Nov 2005. This presents the best practices of user interface design as design patterns, each pattern presented with practical advice, examples, recommendations, design alternatives, and caveats. 352 pages.

Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions, by Bill Scott and Theresa Neil, O’Reilly and Associates, Jul 2009. This offers 75+ design patterns for building interfaces that provide rich interaction, organized according to six key principles which help you use current interactive web technologies. 332 pages.

Designing With Web Standards, 3^rdEd, by Jeffrey Zeldman and Ethan Marcotte, New Riders Publishing, Oct 2009. This explains how designers can best use standards — primarily XHTML and CSS, plus ECMAScript and the DOM — to increase their productivity and maximize site availability. 432 pages.

Developing With Web Standards, by John Allsopp, New Riders Publishing, Nov 2009. This teaches current best practices in standards-based development, with a focus on emerging aspects of HTML, CSS, and other web standards.

Even Faster Websites: Essential Knowledge for Frontend Engineers, by Steve Souders, O’Reilly and Associates, Jun 2009. This teaches 15 more techniques for making websites which load faster. 254 pages

Mobile Design and Development: Practical Concepts and Techniques for Creating Mobile Sites and Web Apps, by Brian Fling, O’Reilly and Associates, Sep 2009. Offers practical guidelines, standards, and techniques for building a mobile website or web application. 332 pages

Mommy, Where Do Customers Come From?: How to Market to a New World of Connected Customers, by Larry Bailin, Larstan, Nov 2007. This details changes in approach necessary to successfully market and sell products and services to connected customers. 224 pages.

Web Design for Developers: A Programmer’s Guide to Design Tools and Techniques, by Brian Hogan, Pragmatic Bookshelf, Dec 2009. Learn the basic concepts of design, color theory, typography, and accessibility, and how to apply these to make better looking web pages.

Web Design in a Nutshell, 3^rdEd., by Jennifer Niederst, O’Reilly and Associates, Feb 2006. This is an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and CSS, and also has an overview of requirements of web design, with details about JavaScript and DOM scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. 704 pages.

Web Site Cookbook: Solutions & Examples for Building and Administering Your Web Site, by Doug Addison, O’Reilly and Associates, Feb 2006. This covers the essential skills you need to create engaging, visitor-friendly websites, addressing the practical issues regarding their inception, design, and maintenance. 280 pages.

Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine, & Conversion Rate Secrets, by Andrew King, O’Reilly and Associates, Jul 2008. Shows how to improve your site’s performance by boosting search engine visibility for more traffic, increasing conversion rates to maximize leads and profits, revving up site speed to retain users, and measuring your site’s effectiveness with best-practice metrics and tools. 367 pages.

Java

Head First Java, 2^ndEd, by Bert Bates and Kathy Sierra, O’Reilly and Associates, May 2009. A complete introduction to object-oriented programming and Java, from the fundamentals to advanced topics. 688 pages.

Java Cookbook 2^ndEd, by Ian F. Darwin, O’Reilly and Associates, Jun 2004. A comprehensive collection of problems, solutions, and practical examples, with 100’s of proven Java recipes covering all of the major Java 1.4 APIs and the most important features of the upcoming 1.5 APIs. 862 pages.

Java Examples in a Nutshell, 3^rdEd, by David Flanagan, O’Reilly and Associates, Jan 2004. 193 complete, practical Java examples: over 21,900 lines of densely commented, professionally written Java 1.4 code, covering 20 distinct client- and server-side APIs. A companion to Java in a Nutshell, Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell, and Java Enterprise in a Nutshell. 720 pages.

Java in a Nutshell, 5^thEd, by David Flanagan, O’Reilly and Associates, Mar 2005. A comprehensive Java reference book, updated to cover Java 5 (Tiger). 1252 pages.

JavaScript & Dynamic HTML

Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference, 3^rdEd, by Danny Goodman, O’Reilly and Associates, Dec 2006. A comprehensive dHTML reference book. 1307 pages.

Head First JavaScript, by Michael Morrison, O’Reilly and Associates, Jan 2008. This teaches the basics of programming, how browsers run code, and how to use JavaScript for DHTML. 650 pages.

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 5^thEd, by David Flanagan, O’Reilly and Associates, Aug 2006. Comprehensive guide to JavaScript, JScript, and ECMAScript, plus DOM elements they often manipulate, including advanced material on the latest developer topics, such as scripting Flash with JavaScript, HTTP and Ajax, SVG, XML, web services, and remote scripting. Tutorial sections show how to program in JavaScript. Reference sections summarize syntax and options, with copious examples. 1018 pages

JavaScript and DHTML Cookbook, 2^ndEd, by Danny Goodman, O’Reilly and Associates, Aug 2007. An extensive collection of problems, solutions, and practical examples for JavaScript programmers, applying state-of-the-art standards and best practices. 604 pages.

Pro JavaScript Design Patterns, by Ross Harmes and Dustin Diaz, APress, Dec 2007. Master OOP with design patterns. 269 pages.

Perl

Intermediate Perl, by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and Brian D Foy, O’Reilly and Associates, Mar 2006. An introduction to intermediate Perl, by the authors of the classic Learning Perl. 272 pages.

Learning Perl, 5^thEd., by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and Brian D Foy, O’Reilly and Associates, Jul 2008. The book to buy if you want to learn Perl. Updated for Perl 5.10. 328 pages. Once you’ve mastered this, get the next books, Intermediate Perl and Learning Perl Objects, References and Modules.

Learning Perl Objects, References and Modules, by Randal Schwartz and Tom Phoenix, O’Reilly and Associates, Jun 2003. A gentle, thorough introduction to advanced Perl programming, written by the authors of Learning Perl.

Mastering Perl, by Brian D Foy, O’Reilly and Associates, Jun 2007. This book, for those who have mastered Learning Perl and Internediate Perl, pulls everything together to show you how to bend Perl to your will. 368 pages.

Perl Best Practices: Standards and Styles for Developing Maintainable Code, by Damian Conway, O’Reilly and Associates, Jul 2005. This offers 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you produce code that is clear, robust, efficient, maintainable, and concise. 544 pages.

Perl Cookbook, 2^ndEd, by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington, Jul 2003. A comprehensive collection of problems, solutions, and practical examples for anyone programming in Perl, with hundreds of "recipes" and thousands of examples ranging from brief one-liners to complete applications. Updated for Perl 5.8.

PHP

Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites, by Robin Nixon, O’Reilly and Associates, Jul 2009. Learn how to create responsive, data-driven websites with PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript. 526 pages.

PHP and MySQL Web Development, 4^thEd, by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, Sams Publishing, Oct 2008. Introduction to PHP and MySQL for the purpose of creating dynamic Internet sites. 1008 pages.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization

The Art of SEO, by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, and Jessie Stricchiola. O’Reilly and Associates, Oct 2009. This has guidelines for planning and executing a comprehensive website search engine strategy: for novices this is a thorough education on SEO; for the experienced this is an extensive reference for ongoing projects. 608 pages.

Building Findable Websites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond, by Aarron Walter, New Riders, Feb 2008. Shows how sites can be built with SEO coding strategies, microformats, standards, accessibility guidelines, and third party APIs, all in an effort to drive traffic. 264 pages.

Search Engine Advertising, 2^ndEd : Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales, by Kevin Lee and Catherine Seda, New Riders Publishing, May 2009. Outlines the strategy in buying specific keyword positions to lead users to the page you want, describes how to turn poor-performing ad copy into targeted sales-getters, and shows how to evaluate and correct low visitor-to-buyer conversions. 288 pages.

Search Engine Marketing, Inc, 2^ndEd: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site, by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt, IBM Press, Sep 2008. This helps you define your SEO/SEM goals, craft a best practices program for achieving them, and implement it flawlessly. 672 pages.

Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, 3^rdEd, by Peter Kent, For Dummies Publishing, Jun 2008. This shows how to build sites that rank high in the search engines and that generate high traffic. 432 pages.

When Search Meets Web Usability, by Shari Thurow and Nick Musica, New Riders, Apr 2008. This shows how to make an deffective Web site that is search engine friendly, to result in better search rankings, how to bridge the gap between a Google search and a Web site, and how to improve the users’ experience once they get to the site. 208 pages.

SQL

MySQL in a Nutshell, 2^ndEd, by Russell Dyer, O’Reilly and Associates, Mar 2008. A reference to all MySQL functions, the popular MySQL utilities, and the APIs for PHP, Perl, and C, with several tutorial chapters for newcomers, updated for v5.1. 400 pages.

PHP and MySQL Web Development, 4^thEd, by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, Sams Publishing, Oct 2008. Introduction to PHP and MySQL for the purpose of creating dynamic Internet sites. 1008 pages.

Pro MySQL, by Michael Kruckenberg and Jay Pipes, Apress, Jul 2005. A comprehensive MySQL 5 guide for intermediate and advanced MySQL users, focusing on advanced MySQL 5 applications in enterprise environments. 768 pages.

Usability

Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design, by Robert Hoekman Jr., New Riders, Oct 2006. This explores the character traits of great web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of each project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. 264 pages.

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2^ndEd, by Steve Krug New Riders, Aug 2005. Learn how to make sites which are easy to use. 216 pages.

Eyetracking Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice, New Riders, Dec 2009. Learn how much a user’s goal or task affects how they read and traverse a website, which parts of a page users attend to first, how readers react to ads and design elements that look like ads, where people look first for common page elements and navigation, how they respond to text, pictures, and multimedia, and more. 360 pages.

Handbook of Usability Testing: Howto Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, by Jeffrey Rubin and Dana Chisnell, Wiley, May 2008. This provides clear, step-by-step guidelines to help you test your product for usability. 384 pages.

Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, by Janice (Ginny) Redish, Morgan Kaufmann, Jun 2007. A thorough overview of the issues in writing for the web, showing how to write so that visitors will read what you write. 384 pages.

Prioritizing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger, New Riders, May 2006. Learn about site design, user experience and usability testing, navigation and search capabilities, old guidelines and prioritizing usability issues, page design and layout, content design, and more. 432 pages.

Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems, by Steve Krug, New Riders, Dec 2009. Details an approach to usability testing that anyone can easily apply to their own web site.

Security and Usability: Designing Secure Systems that People Can Use, by Lorrie Cranor and Simson Garfinkel, O’Reilly and Associates, Aug 2005. A collection of 34 groundbreaking essays from leading security and human-computer interaction researchers on authentication, privacy and anonymity, secure systems, commercialization, and much more. 714 pages.

When Search Meets Web Usability, by Shari Thurow and Nick Musica, New Riders, Apr 2008. This shows how to make an deffective Web site that is search engine friendly, to result in better search rankings, how to bridge the gap between a Google search and a Web site, and how to improve the users’ experience once they get to the site. 208 pages.

Other

Fluid Web Typography, by Jason Cranford Teague, New Riders, Dec 2009. This shows how to apply principles of fluid typography, websafe fonts, downloaded fonts, and type on images to create robust scalable designs.

Fonts & Encodings, by Yannis Haralambous, O’Reilly and Associates, Sep 2007. A comprehensive guide to using fonts and typography on the Web, across a variety of operating systems and application software. 1016 pages

Unicode Explained, by Jukka K. Korpela, O’Reilly and Associates, Jun 2006. A comprehensive guide to using Unicode. 658 pages