If you're serious about software engineering (in 2026),

read these 12 books:

1 Designing Data-Intensive Applications

2 Clean Code

3 The Pragmatic Programmer

4 The Mythical Man-Month

5 Introduction to Algorithms (CLRS)

6 Design Patterns (Gang of Four)

7 Code Complete

8 The C Programming Language

9 Refactoring

10 The Art of Computer Programming

11 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

12 Peopleware

The software engineering community (HN, ACM, Reddit, Pragmatic Bookshelf) recommends these books.

What else would you add to the list?