I have 3 programming books. One I bought in 2011, one I bought this year, and another I got off a friend. My first programming book was the Blitz Basic manuals (back in 2000, 2002 they'd ship you 2 books to help get you started). Those books I won't count, so here's my 3:

In 2010 I bought Programming In C, by Stephen Kochan, this is useful if you want to learn fundamentals of number crunching but it isn't much fun.

I got a C++ book off a friend, the book is by Bjarne Stroustrup. He is "quite" the academic and to be honest I skimmed most of this book. The explanations are too dry and boring for me, I don't understand the chapter on class types. I need a tutorial that is specific to games, which has example code for an SDL implementation of class types.

In 2016 I bought Jazon Yamamoto's book, The Black Art Of Multiplatform Games Programming and it's bloody good! I haven't finished it yet.

I'm usually very photogenic but as you can tell by this photo I'm feeling a little indifferent about life and programming atm :/ ... but I digress!

What do you own and like?

I donated to the local library some of my outdated API-based ones, but the ones I decided to keep are:

Programming AI by Example

3D Game Engine Design and Architecture

Designing Virtual Worlds

Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design

The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design

Challenges for Game Designers

The Pragmatic Programmer

Code Complete 2nd Ed

Design Patterns (Gang of Four)

...and a couple older books I bought used, for a few bucks apiece (e.g. Tog on Interface, Game Programming Golden Rules).

Note: Apart from Code Complete and Design Patterns, I don't necessarily endorse any of those books as worth buying; some because they aren't worth buying, and others because I just haven't gotten around to doing more than just flipping through it (like Programming Game AI by Example).

Nowadays, I do almost all my reading on the internet.

Here you go:
http://crealysm.com/page/resume-game-development-studies.html

That's a long list. Did you score any of those 2nd hand? Technical books cost good money.

Nowadays, I do almost all my reading on the internet.

It certainly helps. The Lazy Foo website has an excellent SDL 2 tutorial and the internet is great for obscure topics too.

I keep my own list in my notebook at http://www.gamedevpensieve.com/reference/books. I only own the underlined ones so i have a total of 53 books. Need a separate bookshelf for them :).

BTW Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of C++, so his books on C++ will of course be very technical and focus on small details. Not the best beginner's material.

Whenever it gets to the end of a financial year and I'm not poor at the time, I usually get inspired to go spend a hundred or two on technical books to make the most of my tax return :lol: My office bookshelf has:
Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 12 (this one's in the mail...)
GPU Pro 1/2/3/4/5/6 -- Great if you're an intermediate/advanced graphics programmer
ShaderX 7 -- Actually the same series/editor as above, but different publisher
Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics*
Real-Time Collision Detection
Real-Time Rendering -- An amazing overview of so many different computer graphics topic.
Real-Time Shadows
Advanced Global Illumination
Physically Based Rendering, Second Edition: From Theory To Implementation -- Dives extremely in depth in building a ray-tracer and explains the concepts very well, if you like reading code... The book contains the full code for one!
Practical Rendering and Computation with Direct3D 11* -- Great D3D11 reference manual
OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 4.3
OpenGL SuperBible: Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference
OpenGL 4 Shading Language Cookbook
OpenGL ES 3.0 Programming Guide
OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide
Game Programming Patterns
Game Engine Architecture -- good if you're an intermediate programmer and wonder how proprietary engines get built
Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction -- a bible that every professional programmer reads (or claims they've read) :D
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
Large-Scale C++ Software Design -- very dry, but it's the bible for staying sane in large C++ code-bases.
Effective C++ -- Scott Meyers is very readable and just wants to correct people's bad habits - a must for all C++ programmers.
More Effective C++ -- as above

*"Mathematics for 3D..." and "Practical Rendering..." have authors who are members of this forum, so of course those books are good :wink:

Some of the topics you guys read about are esoteric to me! I feel like a complete noob and as appropriate I will formally study from beginners level up!

Side issue: Windows Defender today discovered a virus called Trojan:Win32/codinx.A!cl and the infected file was from the companion download that comes with Yamamoto's book - SimpleTileMap.exe to be precise, one of the pre-compiled examples that I had extracted. I did a full system scan and again it found the infected file, this time the original file inside the ZIP folder. If anybody at any point in the future downloads this I'd like to know if they can replicate the issue.

Edit: Actually, you don't need to buy the book to get access. If anybody would like to donate time right now go here and click "access downloadable files > companion downloads > companion files > source". I think the infected file was in chapter 8... unless there was another source of the infection but I'm not aware of that.

And then, the book Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus is old but could help beginner build lots of 2d game develpment essential. And then read the book Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus-Advanced 3D Graphics and Rasterization (also old but useful for build 3D essential) can take you into 3d game develpment. After then, you can try to read some book about computer graphics, such as Real-Time Rendering . And then you already have a mamo-concept about game development , and choice your favourite field to specialize in. :)

I have a Sams Teach Yourself HTML/CSS and I don't like it, looking back I think it's awful. According to Amazon, the book you recommend has the same page count as my HTML book. It is by another author but that doesn't mean I will trust it. I'm going to try out Yamamoto's book, chapter 11, where he talks about factories and scripting (to create class objects). Regardless of my progress on that chapter, I think I will retreat to Blitz Max. The 2 bad things about Blitz is that 1) you need to buy a license; and 2) it only runs on Windows. It's a good thing I use Windows now, and also good that I already have a Blitz license from 10 years ago :D

I have bought numerous books over the years with the plans to learn, but real life intervenes every time. Even with the distractions I still have kept them all.

The C++ Programming Language

Programming Principles and Practices Using C++

Game Programming Paterns

Do-It-Yourself Java Games

Beginning Java 8 Games Development

Game Programming Algorithms and Techniques

Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development

A Game Design Vocabularly

Real-Time 3D Rendering with DirectX and HLSL

Multiplayer Game Programming

The C++ Standard Library

Data Structures and Algorithms for Game Developers

Programming Game AI by Example

Mathematics and Physics for Programmers

Code Complete

Game Coding Complete

OpenGL Supebible

OpenGL Programming Guide

OpenGL Shading Language

API Design for C++

SDL Game Development

SFML Game Development

C++ Primer

Game Development with Unity

Modern C++ Design

Effective C++

More Effective C++

Effetive Modern C++

Effective STL

Game Engine Architecture (1st and 2nd Editions)

C++ Coding Standards

The Pragmatic Programmer

The C Language

Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in C++

Design Patterns

C and C++ Compiling

Even have classics like:

Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus

Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus

My list goes on as I've got a whole other bookshelf in the bedroom of books, but suffice to say it has (for the most part) a lot of the books already mentioned in this thread.

Game Scripting Mastery