Write Useful Books

This is an excellent collection of XML best practices: essential reading for any developer using XML. This book will help you avoid common pitfalls and ensure your XML applications remain practical and interoperable for as long as possible.

The newest edition of the classic An Introduction to Database Systems incorporates the latest developments in relational databases, including semantic modeling, decision support, and temporal modeling. There's better information on distributed databases, security, and the mathematics of relational databases too. With the same strong coverage of fundamental theory that made its predecessors stand out, this book ranks as the definitive textbook for those studying database systems.
This is an extraordinarily academic book. In his preface, C.J. Date goes so far as to lament having to use Structured Query Language (SQL) in some of his examples because it's "so far from being a true embodiment of relational principles." What's more, he writes in a very academic style, peppering his heavily footnoted prose with mathematical expressions and words like relevar and tuple. The academic style and highbrow language isn't a bad thing, since this book deals with complicated, largely abstract phenomena in depth.
Be aware that An Introduction to Database Systems is a far cry from the highly graphical, problem-focused books that target the community of commercial database developers, and as such requires more careful study. This book is about theories, concepts, and ideals rather than problems, solutions, and specific implementations. Per se, it will enable you to become a better database programmer–but only if you supplement it with practical guides and hands-on experience.

Of the various books I have used for teaching syntax, this is the one that I prefer most. It is introductory in the sense that it requires little in terms of background or previous knowledge, but it is also advanced in the sense that it gradually builds up to a level of sophistication that is rarely achieved in introductory textbooks. The exercises are well integrated and challenging enough to trigger lively discussion and a high level of active participation from the students.
As an introductory textbook should be, this book is elegant and parsimonious, in particular, with SPR functioning dually as 'specifier' and 'subject', and GAP replacing SLASH with no LOCAL-NONLOCAL distinction. I've come to appreciate Syntactic Theory much more than previous works on HPSG. The book is well meant to be realistic and performance-plausible while espousing the competence model of phrase structure grammar.

'English Through Pictures' is the remarkable invention of I A Richards and Christine Gibson, who designed it to help the learner speak, read and write English in the quickest and clearest possible way – through pictures. The authors have made a careful selection of the most widely useful English words, choosing those with the power to define other words, and have put them to work in key patterns that offer the learner the ability to communicate successfully in English.