 | The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt
Buy new: $32.25 / Used from: $21.00 Start here. End here, if you're in a rush... this is really the best source of information out there for being a better programmer.
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 | Head First Design Patterns by Elisabeth Freeman
Buy new: $29.67 / Used from: $24.00 Don't let the dippy format (or the Fisheye photo on the cover) steer you away from this important topic: if you are going to be a better programmer, you *must* know patterns, and this is a fine introduction. It's in Java, but the code is secondary to the abstract ideas they demonstrate: it is extensible to any language.
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 | Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler
Buy new: $41.93 / Used from: $23.99 Expensive, yes, and really you will read this one and only flip to the first 1/4 of the book thereafter. But refactoring your code effectively is a paramount skill for better programming... and knowing what "smells" to look for is perhaps even more important.
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 | The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)) by Scott Berkun
Buy used from: $17.99 Not about programming, perhaps, but about being effective. This focuses (almost exclusively) on software development projects, so it's well worth your read, even if you aren't a manager, as you'll learn about time estimation, what to work on when, and how developers' time should be blocked to be most effective.
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