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

Since 1996, JavaScript: The Definitive Guide has been the bible for JavaScript programmers—a programmer's guide and comprehensive reference to the core language and to the client side JavaScript APIs defined by web browsers. The 6th edition covers HTML5 and ECMAScript 5. Many chapters have been completely rewritten to bring them in line with today's best web development practices. New chapters…

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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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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.

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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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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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You Don't Know JS: Scope & Closures

No matter how much experience you have with JavaScript, odds are you don’t fully understand the language. This concise yet in-depth guide takes you inside scope and closures, two core concepts you need to know to become a more efficient and effective JavaScript programmer. You’ll learn how and why they work, and how an understanding of closures can be a powerful part of your development skills…

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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.

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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JavaScript & JQuery: The Missing Manual

JavaScript lets you supercharge your HTML with animation, interactivity, and visual effects

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Effective JavaScript: 68 Specific Ways to Harness the Power of JavaScript

Dave Herman brings users a deep, studied, and practical understanding of the language, guiding them through example after example to help them come to the same conclusions he has. This is not a book for those looking for shortcuts; rather, it is hard-won experience distilled into a guided tour.

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Pro JavaScript Design Patterns

With Pro JavaScript Design Patterns, you’ll start with the basics of object-oriented programming in JavaScript applicable to design patterns, including making JavaScript more expressive, inheritance, encapsulation, information hiding, and more. The book then details how to implement and take advantage of several design patterns in JavaScript. Each chapter is packed with real-world examples of …

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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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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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In my 26 year career as a full stack developer I have been fortunate to develop websites for a large range of companies including Microsoft, Bank of Scotland, BBC, British Medical Association, Heriot-Watt University and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. I also created websites for ten different agencies of the …

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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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Hello there! I'm Muhib, a seasoned Software Engineer and former Lead Instructor at a top coding boot camp. Over the last three years, I've personally helped over 100 students achieve their goals and build successful careers in tech. I specialize in Full-Stack JavaScript and Python development. With my expertise, I'm …

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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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