Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion?

Try a lisp-book, they are often heavy on recursion. One book I see recommended very often is "the little schemer", I want to pick it up some day, it'll teach you about scheme, computation and recursion.

I haven't read any books about recursion itself however, only books that teach recursion amongst other topics.

The book you're looking for is The Little Schemer (just noticed another commenter suggested this as well). Even if you're not that interested in LISP, you'll come away from this book with a solid grasp of "programs as recursive functions." I found that the format of the book lends itself well to reading during a commute. It's easy to pick up and work through a few pages. If you get to a section that you don't understand right away, slow down and make sure you get it before moving forward.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/little-schemer

Goedel, Escher, Bach. Nothing comes close. It will blow your mind.

And speaking of DRH (Doug Hofstadter) in his Metamagical Themas collection, the last three (?) chapters are a quick and delightful introduction to Lisp and recursion.