Books by author: Kathy Sierra

For me, the "Head First" style of writing/teaching is a little hit or miss. I absorb material well enough from "normal" textbooks, and I find it easier to mark up a normal textbook for future reference. For this material, the highly stylized, very energetic, very repetitive format is a good match.

Design Patterns are a hard concept to teach. Usually good programmers pick them up through years of experience, and it is obvious to them why they should be used. To a novice, Design Patterns are a bunch of jargon that kind of makes sense but doesn't have an obvious purpose.

If you've tried to read the GangOfFour book and been unable to stay awake, this book could be the remedy.

I went through a brief period when I thought that it might be worthwhile to add Java to my programming toolkit (I've since recovered, thank you). This is a solid guide, written in a manner that makes the big concepts easy to remember. It's a little bit slow for an experienced programmer, but it's a solid jumpstart.