C is a general-purpose, imperative computer programming language. It was originally developed by Dennis Ritchie between 1969 and 1973 at Bell Labs. The C language is used to re-implement the Unix operating system. It also has been standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) since 1989 and subsequently by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Throughout my professional career, I have come across many Best C Books and learning materials that I have used personally and I have also recommended these best C programming books to my students.
There are many great C programming books for beginners and experienced. But choosing the right book is important as it can guide your learning.
Here on this page, I am listing ten of those best C programming books which I have used and found them most authoritative on their respective topic. Also, I have compiled this list of the 10 best C books recommended by the programming community.
So let’s see the list of Top C Programming books with its small review that will help you to increase your C programming knowledge.
This book is recommended by the experts and it is the most popular C books. The C Programming Language is written by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, both are the influencer. Dennis M. Ritchie was the designer and creator of the c language.
This book explains all the basic concepts of c language in an easy way. It covers all the modern topic that helps readers to learn the c language.
This book is also one of the popular books for C language. This is well written by Herbert Schildt. It covers the all the aspect of the C language and in this book, Herb Schildt adopted the new ANSI/ISO standard for C, called C99.
As a special bonus, the book includes the complete source code for a C interpreter that you can use as-is enhance to fit your needs. In simple words, we can say that mind-blowing book.
No doubts it is a wonderful book that contains a lot of examples, the good thing is that all the examples are tested carefully. This book is written by Stephen Prata.
One of the important features of this book that at the end of the chapter mentioned the review questions and programming exercises which brings out the most critical pieces of information and help readers to understand and digest the most difficult concepts.
The main goal of this book was to present C in a way that’s easy to comprehend. It is written by David Griffiths and provides the complete learning experience for C language and structured imperative programming.
This book contains a lot of unique methods that help you in learning of C language. This book not only teaches you the language but it helps you to understand how to be a great programmer
The book is targeting people with no prior programming experience. It is quite comprehensive in its treatment of the majority of C programming concepts. It is also covers the information needed by a C programmer in using the standard C library.
Author’s easy language helps all type of readers to readers to understand from beginners to more advanced students. It includes a significant number of exercises and longer programming projects. It also includes extensive revisions and updates.
Expert C programming is a book written by Peter Van Der Linden is a second book which offers many advanced tips and tricks. This book helps C programmer to scan the sections that are relevant to their immediate needs.
The book explains various coding techniques which is used by the best C programmers. It gave an introduction on to C in the simplest language so that a programmer can understand it without in-depth research. It is also an ideal programming book for anyone who wants to learn more about the implementation, practical use of C.
This book explains programming concepts clearly and gives the good programming examples. It is written by Greg Perry, who is a popular author and speaker.
It helps you to learn all the basics: how to organize programs, store and display data, work with variables, operators, I/O, pointers, arrays, functions, and much more. One of the great feature of the book that it updated with C11 standards.
C in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference 2nd Edition written by Peter Prinz is a modern C reference book for experienced C programmers. The book helps you to learn how to build C programs with GNU and build executable programs from C source code. It also teaches how you can test and debug your programs with the help of GNU debugger.
In three-section book cover C language. The first section covers all the important language elements like character, statements, points, memory management. The second section helps you to learn about the C standard library, and the third section teaches about the basic c programming tools.
‘Learn C the Hard Way’ by Zed A. Shaw is a clear and direct introduction to modern C programming. The book crafts in such a way that it is the perfect choice for all programmers who wish to learn C programming and are eager to advance their skills. The book will not only help you learn C programming but also introduce you to many new skills which sought in the programming world.
This book is written by Kernighan for Advanced C programmer. The person should have some background on Data Structure in order to follow most of the examples easily. The book was also structured to reuse function from previous chapters like getting a line, strcmp, alloc, etc.
However, most of these functions are exactly same in C’s standard library. If you read the content of this book deeply, you will learn the crucial area of C that will save you from trouble. Like debugging your code like post fix increments and side effects and the precedence of statement evaluation.