C

C Primer Plus (5th Edition)
$54.99
I'm a freshman in college right now, and this book was required for my Intro to C class. Additionally, this is the first programming language (other than html, lol) I have ever studied.

This book might scare you a little bit when you first pick it up; it's almost a thousand pages dedicated soley to learning a language that was first formally described in 1972. This language is old, and in some ways it shows. When you start studying an aspect of C such as pointers, you might wonder why something so low-level as memory addresses ever need to be understood. Thankfully, this book takes, in their own words, a "spiral" approach to learning the language. This book does not thoroughly go through each single aspect of C, one at a time. It does not thoroughly cover every method of input, then everything about arrays, then all about pointers, etc. Rather, the authors start by introducing you to a single, simple program and go on to describe what makes that program work. They might then cover a little bit about how to get input from the user, then move on for a chapter or two, and then return to input in more detail later.

In general, the author will progress through the book by giving you a sample program, then explaining how and why it works. Wash, rinse, and repeat. This simple formula means that all of the practical methods introduced in the book are reinforced by useful and interesting theory.

In this way, the authors have taken a massive and potentially overwhelming subject and turned it into something that you can play with. The authors start by giving you a basic toolset, and keep on giving you more tools at just the right time to keep you going. By the time you get to the tenth chapter (not to mention the twentieth), you'll have enough of an understanding of how C works to look at a complex program written by any professional programmer, and at least understand what the author of that program is trying to do. You may not understand all of the tools and methods that other programmer used, but at least you will not feel completely lost looking at someone else's code.

All of the written examples in the book were tested on multiple machines with several (eleven?) different compilers, just to make sure that the programs given work as intended. I have found only two typographical errors in all my reading of the book, and both of those were noted on the publishers' website. This book is soundly fact-checked.

What else to say? As a student who plans to make the most of their education (only one shot at it, haha), I couldn't be happier.

C All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies
$34.99
I've been programming in C, on and off, since the mid-80s, and burned a lot of midnite oil reviewing and updating my C skills. This I believe is the best general introduction and refresher on that sometimes quirky language. I especially liked his leisurely and thorough tour through pointers, strings, and structures. His sense of humor is fun but very much aimed at reinforcing the points (ha ha, a pun) he is making. Highly recommended.

C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition
$58.69
Some years back, someone mentioned the first edition of this book on Usenet as a possible alternative to K&R for someone trying to learn C. I was surprised, but I got a copy of the book to find out... And he was right.

Let me get the biases out on the table first: I did technical review of this book for the 2nd edition. But... While that leaves me in a great place to be biased about it, it also means that I'm aware of just how few typos or bugs were there even in the draft versions.

This book is an excellent teaching resource; it covers the language carefully, completely, and well. However, mere clarity of communication isn't enough to make a good programming reference; you also need to have confidence that the example code works as described, that the explanations given are correct, and so on. This is one of the only books out there I feel comfortable recommending to people, without worrying that I'll end up having to correct dozens of misconceptions later.

Quite simply, this is the C book I recommend to people who want to learn C, or polish up their C. In a market full of "approachable" books which are full of errors, this book offers a combination of clarity and accuracy which is unmatched.

C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)
$55.00
If you don't already have this reference and are a professional C programmer, you better get it NOW!!!

I've used this since the 2nd edition getting each new edition as soon as released, one copy for the office and one for home. I prefer it over K&R by leaps and bounds. It's much easier to read and find information than K&R. The examples are better and are much more explanatory.

The only problems are that it needs updating, reformatting and modernization (styling to MISRA and/or CERT-C standard would be nice).
It also doesn't cover all the features of the language, as an example "volatile" is missing so you'll still need K&R. If the above were resolved, I'd dump K&R altogether and give it 5 stars.