"HACKERS AND PAINTERS" Hands down one of the best books on software development(without any actual code). The best bits are: -It comes from someone who has done some good, really good shit, and owned it out there.(He developed a web based platform a year before Hotmail even came into existence) -All throughout the book , Paul Graham advocates writing good software,good code. That's all!! -The book takes a philosophical approach, but is not "a sacred collection of chants", and is hence, awesome. -Its a collection of his essays , which he has written over years , and hence, traverses changing times and trends. -Though I strongly recommend that one read it page to page, the author himself claims that you can pick up any chapter from anywhere. - He is friends with Robert Morris!!!(Come on! He gets to hang out with the guy who "invented" First Computer WORM on the Internet)

The books cleanly talks about and focuses on writing good code and unlike a lot of others, tells why writing code is a craft and not a mere JOB.