Top Rust 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 Rust books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Rust

Understanding the concepts of Rust 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.

Rust in Action

Rust in Action is a hands-on guide to systems programming with Rust. Written for inquisitive programmers, it presents real-world use cases that go far beyond syntax and structure. Rust in Action introduces the Rust programming language by exploring numerous systems programming concepts and techniques.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Rust Programming Language

Rust is a “low-level” or system programming language. That means it can sit close to and interact directly with hardware, without the need for an abstraction layer like an operating system or web browser like web development languages including JavaScript.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Zero To Production in Rust

Zero To Production is designed as introduction to backend development: we do spend a significant amount of time talking about specific libraries and tools (we are doing it for real, after all!), but the underlying concepts and the rationale behind our choices are thoroughly explained, without assuming that the reader has worked on similar problems before. Check the book sample for a taste!

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Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development

The Rust systems programming language combines that control with a modern type system that catches broad classes of common mistakes, from memory management errors to data races between threads.

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Rust Standard Library Cookbook

Mozilla's Rust is gaining much attention with amazing features and a powerful library. This book will take you through varied recipes to teach you how to leverage the Standard library to implement efficient solutions. The book begins with a brief look at the basic modules of the Standard library and collections. From here, the recipes will cover packages that support file/directory handling an…

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Code Like a Pro in Rust

Code Like A Pro in Rust is a fast-track guide to building and delivering professional quality software in Rust. You'll upgrade your basic knowledge of Rust with conventions, best practices, and veteran's secrets that are normally only learned through years of experience.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Rust Reading

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

Rust Atomics and Locks: Low-Level Concurrency in Practice

The Rust programming language is extremely well suited for concurrency, and its ecosystem has many libraries that include lots of concurrent data structures, locks, and more. But implementing those structures correctly can be very difficult.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Rust Brain Teasers: Exercise Your Mind

In this book, you'll work through a series of brain teasers that will challenge your understanding of Rust. By understanding the gaps in your knowledge, you can become better at what you do and avoid mistakes. Many of the teasers in this book come from the author's own experience creating software.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Learn Rust in a Month of Lunches

Learn Rust in a Month of Lunches teaches you to write super fast and super safe Rust code through lessons you can fit in your lunch break. Crystal-clear explanations and focused, relevant examples make it accessible to anyone—even if you're learning Rust as your first programming language.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Practical Systems Programming with Rust

Modern programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, and Java have become increasingly accepted for application-level programming, but for systems programming, C and C++ are predominantly used due to the need for low-level control of system resources. Rust promises the best of both worlds: the type safety of Java, and the speed and expressiveness of C++, while also including memory safety …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Beginning Rust: From Novice to Professional

Beginning Rust starts with the basics of Rust, including how to name objects, control execution flow, and handle primitive types. You'll see how to do arithmetic, allocate memory, use iterators, and handle input/output.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

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