If you happen to ask why most people try to run away from JavaScript, you will realize that they may not have had a good experience learning it. Personally, I understand this. The problem is that most beginners usually end up disliking the language even without giving it a fair shot.

For this reason, I will share the top 5 JavaScript books that I think will help beginners have a smooth experience with it. These books are not only for beginners but also for advanced developers. It never hurts to look something up that you do not necessarily understand. Let’s get right into it.

1. JavaScript and jQuery by John Duckett

I almost want to call it a classic, but it is not quite old enough to be a classic or even a modern classic. I know a lot of people have this one. It was not until later in my journey when I actually took the plunge and read it. I actually used his HTML and CSS book and really enjoyed them.

I figured this would be a good one to start with when learning JavaScript. There are so many concepts in this book for beginners. The organization and the layout are what make this book stand out above the others. I mean, it is nicely organized, it has great code snippets, and the technical information is on point.

I know some people will not agree on the jQuery part of this book, and that is fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Keep in mind that you do not really have to use jQuery if you do not want to.

It is that simple. All in all, jQuery is still really important to learn because a lot of codebases in enterprise and real-world projects do use jQuery. Think of it like PHP. Most people do not use it, but it is still used in a lot of codebases. If you are a backend developer, and you are trying to just know a little bit about front-end development, I think this is a good candidate as well. I can honestly say that this book is truly newbie-friendly.

2. Eloquent JavaScript 3rd Edition by Marijn Heverbeke

This is the most recent edition, I believe. Some of the things that make this book stand out are the projects and the tests or check your knowledge sections at the end of the chapters.

He also goes into stuff like Node. This is a pretty long book, like 400+ pages. It has a lot of good code snippets. This is more of an advanced book though. I would not say it is completely newbie friendly, maybe newbie+. You might want to take a look at this after John Duckett’s book.

3. the YOU DON’T KNOW JS Series by Kyle Simpson

This book includes up and going, scope and closures, this and object prototypes, types and grammar, async and performance, and ESX and beyond. The good news is that this book is a pretty short book. It is like seventy-something pages. Do not let the shortage of pages fool you. The way he describes these things and the way he takes them and puts them into manageable chunks is a big selling point of this book and the series.

So, whereas the first two books can get overwhelming very quickly, you can just grab this book get right into the basic things that make JavaScript, JavaScript. Things like comparing values, built-in type methods, what are functions? What are loops? How do they work? What is there to understand about conditionals? If you are totally new to JavaScript, this would be one of the books you would want to pick up. He also goes into other things like ES6.

4. If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript by Angus Croll

This is probably the most creative JavaScript book I have ever seen. The concept is what would happen if all these literary characters were tasked with writing JavaScript. People like Hemingway, Virginia Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, and the likes. If you do not know who these authors are, it is probably going to take out a lot of the fun of this book, but you can still see some of the syntaxes.

The author explains how a different author would write some syntaxes based on what he knew about that particular author. Truth be told, if you are not into books or like classic literature, this is probably going to be a little lame. I just thought I would add it to this list to cater to such people. At the very minimum, you can see different ways of writing JavaScript.

5. JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford

What I like about this book is that Douglas Crockford is not afraid to admit that JavaScript has some pretty bad parts. However, in this book, he strips away those bad parts and shows you the good parts and how you can use them to your advantage as a developer and as a problem solver.

This book is pretty old. I might even say antique when we are talking about web development. I mean, it is from 2008. However, because it is based on JavaScript theory, this is the core of JavaScript and what makes JavaScript JavaScript. It does not change. The core will never change.

That is what makes this book powerful. Javascript will always have literals. Javascript will always have expression. The way he explains these things, you can tell that he is a very good writer and kind of old school.

The book has lots of flowcharts and code snippets exposing the good parts of JavaScript. I like to think of it as kind of a mind opener in case you have been frustrated by JavaScript. I understand that JavaScript is a really frustrating language. It was never meant to be the primary language of the web since it kind of inherited the web after Java applets failed. It was next to inherit the key to the kingdom. So now we are stuck with it. We have to learn it and learn how to work it because it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

I am not saying that these books are set in stone as beginner books, but I believe you will have a much easier time after going through them. There are other JavaScript books and videos out there you can use if these ones do not fit your style of learning. Happy coding.

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