Top JavaScript 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 JavaScript books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of JavaScript

Understanding the concepts of JavaScript 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.

Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming

JavaScript lies at the heart of almost every modern web application, from social apps like Twitter to browser-based game frameworks like Phaser and Babylon. Though simple for beginners to pick up and play with, JavaScript is a flexible, complex language that you can use to build full-scale applications. This much anticipated and thoroughly revised third edition of Eloquent JavaScript dives dee…

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Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition: A Modern Introduction to Programming

JavaScript lies at the heart of almost every modern web application, from social apps like Twitter to browser-based game frameworks like Phaser and Babylon. Though simple for beginners to pick up and play with, JavaScript is a flexible, complex language that you can use to build full-scale applications. This much anticipated and thoroughly revised third edition of Eloquent JavaScript dives dee…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Learn JavaScript VISUALLY

Beautifully Illustrated book that teaches javascript fundamentals trough metaphors, analogies and easy step-by-step exercises. Visual learners retain information very differently than their left brained counter-parts, and thus benefit from different approaches.

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JavaScript: The Missing Manual

JavaScript is an essential language for creating modern, interactive websites, but its complex rules challenge even the most experienced web designers. With JavaScript: The Missing Manual, you'll quickly learn how to use JavaScript in sophisticated ways -- without pain or frustration -- even if you have little or no programming experience. JavaScript expert David McFarland first teaches you th…

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Head First JavaScript Programming: A Brain-Friendly Guide

This brain friendly guide teaches you everything from JavaScript language fundamentals to advanced topics, including objects, functions, and the browser’s document object model. You won’t just be reading—you’ll be playing games, solving puzzles, pondering mysteries, and interacting with JavaScript in ways you never imagined. And you’ll write real code, lots of it, so you can start building you…

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A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript

The author wrote the book and exercises especially for people who are new to programming. Making no assumptions about what you already know, the author walks you through JavaScript slowly, patiently. They explain every little thing in sixth-grade English and avoid unnecessary technical jargon like the plague.

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Additional JavaScript Reading

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

High Performance JavaScript

If you're like most developers, you rely heavily on JavaScript to build interactive and quick-responding web applications. The problem is that all of those lines of JavaScript code can slow down your apps. This book reveals techniques and strategies to help you eliminate performance bottlenecks during development. You'll learn how to improve execution time, downloading, interaction with the DO…

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JavaScript Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming

JavaScript Crash Course is a fun-filled, fast-paced introduction to programming with JavaScript. Dive right in and you’ll be writing code, solving problems, and building working web applications and games in no time. You’ll start by learning fundamental programming concepts, such as variables, arrays, objects, functions, conditionals, loops, classes, and more. Aided by engaging examples and ha…

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Introducing functional programming with Underscore.js

How can you overcome JavaScript language oddities and unsafe features? With this book, you’ll learn how to create code that’s beautiful, safe, and simple to understand and test by using JavaScript’s functional programming support. Author Michael Fogus shows you how to apply functional-style concepts with Underscore.js, a JavaScript library that facilitates functional programming techniques. Sa…

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Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition

This much anticipated and thoroughly revised third edition of Eloquent JavaScript dives deep into the JavaScript language to show you how to write beautiful, effective code. It has been updated to reflect the current state of JavaScript and web browsers and includes brand-new material on features like class notation, arrow functions, iterators, async functions, template strings, and block scop…

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JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

For nearly 25 years this best seller has been the go-to guide for JavaScript programmers. The seventh edition is fully updated to cover the 2020 version of JavaScript, and new chapters cover classes, modules, iterators, generators, Promises, async/await, and metaprogramming. You’ll find illuminating and engaging example code throughout.

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JavaScript: The Good Parts

Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, l…

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Specializations and Deeper JavaScript Knowledge

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

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: Master the World's Most-Used Programming Language

JavaScript is the programming language of the web and is used by more software developers today than any other programming language. For nearly 25 years this best seller has been the go-to guide for JavaScript programmers. The seventh edition is fully updated to cover the 2020 version of JavaScript, and new chapters cover classes, modules, iterators, generators, Promises, async/await, and meta…

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This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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https://sanzeev.com.np/ Senior Frontend Engineer with over 12 years of experience and currently working at eBay. My core skills are Node.js, JavaScript, Typescript, HTML, CSS, GraphQL and Ionic/Cordova, and I have worked with frameworks such as Backbone, Angular, React and Marko js. I specialize in web app, hybrid mobile app development …

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Are you a junior developer looking to fast track your career in web development? Do you need guidance on learning the right and up to date content, building real-world projects, and preparing for job interviews? Look no further! I am a Senior Software Engineer with 9 years of experience in …

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I am a seasoned Front End Software Engineer with over 10 years of experience at various tech companies, currently based in Toronto, Canada. I am currently working at Square and was previously at Coinbase, Taplytics. I have previously mentored at Lighthouse Labs: Canada's Leading Coding Bootcamp. I have professional, hands-on …

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Senior Software Engineer at GitHub Actions. I build distributed systems and tooling for platform engineering and developer experience, improving how teams deploy and scale cloud-native workloads. I’m especially interested in Go, Kubernetes, networking, containers, and observability. I also maintain a strong interest in emerging technologies like Rust, eBPF, and WebAssembly …

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👋 Hello, my name is Mladen. I am a software engineer based in Switzerland, with more than ten years of experience in software engineering. I have a passion for finding user-friendly solutions to complex problems and have done it for products in different industries. As a result, I have broad …

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Greetings! My name is Praveen and I am a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft. It brings me great pleasure to serve as your mentor and share my expertise to help you achieve your full potential. I am thrilled to offer my guidance and support in areas such as React development, …

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