Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?

I think a lot of this depends on context. Programming books tend to require a certain amount of concentration, especially if covering topics novel to the reader, and if they have a decent information density. That's ok, I'd rather read something that takes some thought over a few days, than wade through a pile of verbose crap with little true information but finish it in an evening.

However, looking back over some books I've read for ones that I read cover to cover without much of a break, one was programming in scala - I thought it was well written, but it was also an easy read as I was familiar with much of the material, and it was very relevant to what I was doing at the time. There are books that I've really enjoyed where at least some of the content was truly new to me, like "essentials of programming languages", and "concepts, techniques and models of computer programming" - I can't honestly say I read the latter without taking a break every now and again though. But both of these books are very enjoyable and present the material in really nice ways. I wish I'd had these as an undergraduate.

I did read the pragmatic programmer a long time ago, pretty much cover to cover. Trying to reread it now, it (and the other books I've attempted to read of theirs) seem like the pop psychology of programming books. I enjoyed it at the time, and felt it was worthwhile. Probably a better book for programmers starting out. When I attempted to read it again I found it patronising and self indulgent.

Mr Bunny's Big Cup O' Java : http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Bunnys-Big-Cup-Java/dp/0201615630/r...

"The Old New Thing" by Raymond Chen. It is full of fun stories, and also an excellent viewpoint into maintaining backwards compatability in Windows.

Two programming books that I actually did read cover to cover was:

- Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual. Lively presentation of standard algorithms, with some very fun war stories thrown in. I found it a lighter read than CLRS and TAOCP (those are books you study).

- Segaran's Programming collective intelligence. Quick paced introduction to data mining in Python. The code in the book is very informal but easy to understand.

I read The Little Schemer in three or four sit-downs. (I think the author advises not to read it in one sitting.)

1) The Practice of Programming - Rob Pike 2) Programming Pearls