These are books considered most influential for programmers from this StackOverflow thread.
Cause SO is cathedral, Github is bazzar ;)
Long answer: I frequently visit above thread. Over the time, such an active thread is closed, links to book sites are removed and I have to copy/paste/search everytime I go there. I am afraid they might remove it entirely.
So, the list is preserved here :)
- Code Complete (2nd edition) by Steve McConnell
- The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Sussman and Abelson (free pdf)
- The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
- Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest & Stein
- Design Patterns by the Gang of Four
- Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler
- The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks
- The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth
- Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey D. Ullman
- Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
- Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin
- Effective C++ by Scott Meyers
- More Effective C++ by Scott Meyers
- CODE by Charles Petzold
- Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
- Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael C. Feathers
- Peopleware by Demarco and Lister
- Coders at Work by Peter Seibel
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman
- Effective Java 2nd edition by Joshua Bloch
- Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler
- The Little Schemer by Matthias Felleisen and Daniel P. Friedman
- The Seasoned Schemer by Matthias Felleisen and Daniel P. Friedman
- Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby by why the lucky stiff (free PDF)
- The Inmates Are Running The Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper
- The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond
- Test-Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck (free PDF)
- Practices of an Agile Developer by Venkat Subramaniam and Andy Hunt
- Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
- Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices by Robert C. Martin
- Domain Driven Designs by Eric Evans
- The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
- Modern C++ Design by Andrei Alexandrescu
- Best Software Writing I by Joel Spolsky
- The Practice of Programming by Kernighan and Pike
- Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware by Andy Hunt
- Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art by Steve McConnel
- The Passionate Programmer by Chad Fowler
- Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy (free ebook)
- Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs by Niklaus Wirth (free PDF)
- Writing Solid Code by Steve Maguire
- JavaScript - The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford
- Getting Real by 37 Signals (free PDF)
- Foundations of Programming by Karl Seguin (free PDF)
- Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C (2nd Edition) by Foley, Dam, Feiner, Hughes
- Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel
- The Elements of Computing Systems by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken(free ebook)
- Refactoring to Patterns by Joshua Kerievsky
- Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tanenbaum
- The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold
- Things That Make Us Smart by Donald Norman
- The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
- The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management by Tom DeMarco
- The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition) by Stroustrup
- Computer Systems - A Programmer's Perspective by Bryant and O'Hallaron
- Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# by Robert C. Martin
- Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce
- Framework Design Guidelines by Brad Abrams
- Object Thinking by Dr. David West
- Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens
- Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham
- The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
- CLR via C# by Jeffrey Richter
- Design Patterns in C# by Steve Metsker
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
- About Face - The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper
- Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
- The Tao of Programming by Geoffrey James (free ebook)
- Computational Beauty of Nature by Gary William Flake
- Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing (free ebook)
- Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications by Grady Booch
- Computability by N. J. Cutland
- Masterminds of Programming by Federico Biancuzzi
- The Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu
- The Productive Programmer by Neil Ford
- The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick
- The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World by Christopher Duncan
- Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case studies in Common Lisp by Peter Norvig (free ebook)
- Masters of Doom by David Kushner
- Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas
- How To Solve It by George Polya (free PDF)
- Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation by Adele Goldberg
- Writing Secure Code (2nd Edition) by Michael Howard
- Introduction to Functional Programming by Richard Bird
- No Bugs! by David Thielen
- JUnit in Action by Petar Tahchiev
- Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian
What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?
If you could go back in time and tell yourself to read a specific book at the beginning of your career as a developer, which book would it be?
I expect this list to be varied and to cover a wide range of things.