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"Crash" suggests quick. I don't see anything quick about these books. Working through these would take many months of full-time work. Many of these books are references, not particularly suited to self-study.

@dmor, these are not a good introduction for non-technical people to start to learn about computer science. Try the coursera course https://www.coursera.org/course/cs101

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OTOH, better to spend your time and effort on the best, than to spend it in varying degrees of frustration with the relatively poor quality of alternatives.

In this sense, an excellent list of the best resources can indeed be part of a "crash" course. Because, going in, the student may not know what to pick, and without a good instructor/mentor/advisor -- whether in person or in video and text -- less optimal choices may considerably slow things down.

Totally agree. You could probably spend years just studying the Cormen et. al text. Coursera is good too.

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