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Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skeina. CLRS has all the nitty-gritty but I didn't jive with it at all. Skeina won't tell you line-for-line how to balance a red-black tree, but it gets the idea across with clarity.

Also, the war stories are both interesting and useful. Not the book for everyone; most important is to pick one you enjoy reading.

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I think Skiena + CLRS is a particularly fine combination. CLRS is dry and intimidating for all but the most theoretically inclined. Skiena is sloppy and handwavy. Put 'em together and you have something really excellent.

I found CLRS to be far too verbose for my liking. Skiena was as you said. My favourite is Sedgewick. More terse than CLRS; doesn't drone on and on and on.

i.e. CLRS = Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas Cormen, Charles Leiserson, Ronald Rivest and Clifford Stein.

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