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.

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

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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A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript

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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Maintainable JavaScript: Writing Readable Code

Maintainable JavaScript: Writing Readable Code

You may have definite ideas about writing code when working alone, but team development requires that everyone use the same approach. With the JavaScript practices in this book—including code style, programming tips, and automation—you will learn how to write maintainable code that other team members can easily understand, adapt, and extend.

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JavaScript: The Good Parts

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, like a programming model based on global variables.

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Effective JavaScript

Effective JavaScript

In order to truly master JavaScript, you need to learn how to work effectively with the language’s flexible, expressive features and how to avoid its pitfalls. No matter how long you’ve been writing JavaScript code, Effective JavaScript will help deepen your understanding of this powerful language, so you can build more predictable, reliable, and maintainable programs.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition

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 scope.

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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: 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 metaprogramming. You’ll find illuminating and engaging example code throughout. This book is for programmers who want to learn JavaScript and for web developers who want to take their understanding and mastery to the next level. It begins by explaining the JavaScript language itself, in detail, from the bottom up. It then builds on that foundation to cover the web platform and Node.js. Topics include:

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