Top API books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite API books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of API

Understanding the concepts of API starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Undisturbed REST: A Guide to Designing the Perfect API

Believe it or not, building an API is the easy part. What is far more challenging is to put together a design that will stand the test of time, while also meeting your developers' needs. After all, no matter how well written your code may be, without a strong foundation, you will find your API quickly failing. ...

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Pro RESTful APIs: Design, Build and Integrate with REST, JSON, XML and JAX-RS

Discover the RESTful technologies, including REST, JSON, XML, JAX-RS web services, SOAP and more, for building today's microservices, big data applications, and web service applications. ...

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Designing Web APIs: Building APIs That Developers Love

Using a web API to provide services to application developers is one of the more satisfying endeavors that software engineers undertake. But building a popular API with a thriving developer ecosystem is also one of the most challenging. ...

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System Design Interview – An insider's guide

System design questions are often the most difficult of all technical interview questions. This book makes them easier to tackle. It is Volume 1 of the ‘System Design Interview - An Insider’s Guide’ series. This volume provides a reliable strategy and knowledge base for approaching a broad range of system design questions that you may encounter. It will help you feel confident during this impo…

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Hands-On RESTful API Design Patterns and Best Practices: Design, Develop, and Deploy Highly Adaptable, Scalable, and Secure RESTful Web APIs

This book deals with the Representational State Transfer (REST) paradigm, which is an architectural style that allows networked devices to communicate with each other over the internet. ...

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Learning Go: An Idiomatic Approach to Real-World Go Programming

Go has rapidly become the preferred language for building web services. Plenty of tutorials are available to teach Go's syntax to developers with experience in other programming languages, but tutorials aren't enough. They don't teach Go's idioms, so developers end up recreating patterns that don't make sense in a Go context. This practical guide provides the essential background you need to w…

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Additional API Reading

These books are not required for you to learn API, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Full Stack Development with Spring Boot 3 and React: Build modern web applications using the power of Java, React, and TypeScript

If you’re an existing Java developer who wants to go full stack or pick up another frontend framework, this book is your concise introduction to React. In this three-part build-along, you’ll create a robust Spring Boot backend, a React frontend, and then deploy them together.
This new edition is updated to Spring Boot 3 and includes expanded content on security and testing. For the first ti…

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Unbundling the Enterprise: APIs, Optionality, and the Science of Happy Accidents

Unbundling the Enterprise provides a blueprint for organizations to remain relevant and maximize growth in the digital economy by embracing the flexibility and optionality enabled by APIs.
Drawing on real-world examples of both innovative “digital pirates” and legacy “digital settlers,” authors Stephen Fishman and Matt McLarty articulate strategies to unbundle business capabilities into reu…

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RESTful Web APIs: Services for a Changing World

The popularity of REST in recent years has led to tremendous growth in almost-RESTful APIs that don’t include many of the architecture’s benefits. With this practical guide, you’ll learn what it takes to design usable REST APIs that evolve over time. ...

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RESTful API Design

Looking for Best Practices for RESTful APIs?This book is for you! Why? Because this book is packed with practical experience on what works best for RESTful API Design. You want to design APIs like a Pro? Use API description languages to both design APIs and develop APIs efficiently. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

RESTful Web Services Cookbook

While the REST design philosophy has captured the imagination of web and enterprise developers alike, using this approach to develop real web services is no picnic. This cookbook includes more than 100 recipes to help you take advantage of REST, HTTP, and the infrastructure of the Web. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

API Design Patterns

API Design Patterns lays out a set of design principles for building internal and public-facing APIs.A collection of best practices and design standards for web and internal APIs. ...

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Specializations and Deeper API Knowledge

You've got your basics in order – time to move on to some advanced and specialized concepts. API is evolving every day, these books can help you master it.

Mastering API Architecture

Most organizations with a web presence build and operate APIs; the doorway for customers to interact with the company's services. Designing, building, and managing these critical programs affect everyone in the organization, from engineers and product owners to C-suite executives. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

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