From the Top Down

These books are arranged from the simplest to the hardest. However, they can be read in any order you feel comfortable with.

• How to Design Programs by Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and Shiram Krishnamurthi, available online at http://www.htdp.org/

• Simply Scheme: An Introduction to Computer Science by Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright

• How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python by Allen Downey, Jeff Elkner, and Chris Meyers, available online at http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman, available online at http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

• Design Patterns by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides

• What not How: The Rules Approach to Application Development by Chris Date

• The Algorithm Design Manual by Steve Skiena

• Programming Language Pragmatics by Michael Scott

• Essentials of Programming Languages by Daniel P. Friedman, Mitchell Wand, and Christopher T. Haynes