The Best Computer Books for Learning Something New

I continue to learn something new on a regular basis. My experience has been to grab a book on a topic and try to read through it as much as possible. That’s not always successful because the challenge with computer books is they’re usually huge and not too easy to carry around with you and pull-out whenever you’ve got a couple of minutes.

When I was first learning and teaching myself HTML, I always enjoyed the way information was presented in the "Bible" series from Wiley. I felt the way the book was organized and gave the reader a nice overview of the information was very helpful. I’ve also read through a couple of O’Reilly books and also enjoyed them. The "For Dummies" series are really popular, but I’ve never used one to learn something.

Here’s another question for you, the readers, what books have you enjoyed. Which ones have you read that helped you really grasp and understand that topic at hand with whatever technology you were trying to learn and teach yourself?

If you were going to buy a single book to learn a topic, what series would you look for first on the shelf? Let us know in the comments below.