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.

Learning JavaScript Design Patterns

Do you want to write beautiful, structured, and maintainable JavaScript by applying modern design patterns to the language? Do you want clean, efficient, manageable code? Want to stay up-to-date with the latest best practices? If so, the updated second edition of Learning JavaScript Design Patterns is the ideal place to start. Author Addy Osmani shows you how to apply modern design patterns to…

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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 and JQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development

In JavaScript and jQuery: Interactive Front-End Development, best-selling author Jon Duckett delivers a fully illustrated guide to making your websites more interactive and your interfaces more interesting and intuitive. In the book, you’ll explore basic programming concepts that assume no prior knowledge of programming beyond an ability to create a web page using HTML & CSS. You’ll use core e…

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You Don't Know JS: ES6 & Beyond

finalized, learning how to develop high-quality applications with this language is easier and more satisfying than ever. This practical book takes programmers (amateurs and pros alike) on a no-nonsense tour of ES6, along with some related tools and techniques. Author Ethan Brown (Web Development with Node and Express) not only guides you through simple and straightforward topics (variables, co…

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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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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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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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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 & JQuery: The Missing Manual

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

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JavaScript Absolute Beginner's Guide

JavaScript Absolute Beginner's Guide is the fastest way to learn JavaScript and use it together with CSS3 and HTML5 to create powerful web and mobile experiences. Learn how to do what you want, the way you want, one incredibly easy step at a time. JavaScript has never been this simple!

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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: 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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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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