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.

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

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

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…

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

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

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.

Zero to Production In Rust: An introduction to backend development in Rust

Zero To Production is the ideal starting point for your journey as a Rust backend developer.
You will learn by doing: you will build a fully functional email newsletter API, starting from scratch.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

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.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Command-Line Rust: A Project-Based Primer for Writing Rust CLIs

For several consecutive years, Rust has been voted "most loved programming language" in Stack Overflow's annual developer survey. This open source systems programming language is now used for everything from game engines and operating systems to browser components and virtual reality simulation engines. But Rust is also an incredibly complex language with a notoriously difficult learning curve…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Ultimate Rust for Systems Programming

This book is your guide to mastering Rust programming, equipping you with essential skills and insights for efficient system programming. It starts by introducing Rust's significance in the system programming domain and highlighting its advantages over traditional languages like C/C++.

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!

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

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

Augment your Rust books

There is no better source of accountability and motivation than having a personal mentor. What used to be impossible to find is now just two clicks away! All mentors are vetted & hands-on!

Only 1 Spot Left

As a Senior Software Engineer at GitHub, I am passionate about (building) developer and infrastructure tools, with expertise in Go, Kubernetes, and the Cloud Native domain. Currently, I am expanding my knowledge in Rust, systems- and network-programming. Beyond my primary expertise, I've branched out into areas like .NET, React, TypeScript, …

$390 / month
  Chat
Regular Calls
Tasks

Only 5 Spots Left

Hey there! I'm Igor, a lead software engineer with over six years of software development expertise (mostly Rust, c and C++) and three years specializing in blockchain and zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technologies. I hold a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo and have dedicated my career to …

$110 / month
  Chat
Tasks


I work at Facebook as both a Production Engineer which is a hybrid role between a Software Engineer and an SRE as well as a pure Software Engineer. I've worked on the upstream Linux Kernel as well as Meta's custom AI/ML ASIC stack. I have 15 years of experience building …

$270 / month
  Chat
Tasks

Only 5 Spots Left

I bring 20+ years of experience holding C-Suite roles and advising executives and leaders from startups, through SMBs, and Fortune 500 global enterprises across a myriad of industries. I help you figure out where to start, how to grow, who to hire, what technology is best, and everything in between. …

$180 / month
  Chat
1 x Call
Tasks

Only 4 Spots Left

Hello! I believe code is art and humans thrive when they feel heard, understood, and supported. If this resonates with you, I hope you will reach out! With nearly 10 years of professional software experience across the public and private sectors, I have seen a wide range of systems and …

$140 / month
  Chat
1 x Call

Only 4 Spots Left

I am a software engineer at Amazon with 8+ years of experience. Currently, I’m in the Devices org at Amazon, working on a deep learning compiler for inference on the edge. Previously I was on the Rust Platform team at AWS, contributing to the Rust compiler as well as the …

$300 / month
  Chat
2 x Calls
Tasks

Browse all Rust mentors

Still not convinced?
Don’t just take our word for it

We’ve already delivered 1-on-1 mentorship to thousands of students, professionals, managers and executives. Even better, they’ve left an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for our mentors.

Find a Rust mentor
  • "Naz is an amazing person and a wonderful mentor. She is supportive and knowledgeable with extensive practical experience. Having been a manager at Netflix, she also knows a ton about working with teams at scale. Highly recommended."

  • "Brandon has been supporting me with a software engineering job hunt and has provided amazing value with his industry knowledge, tips unique to my situation and support as I prepared for my interviews and applications."

  • "Sandrina helped me improve as an engineer. Looking back, I took a huge step, beyond my expectations."