JavaScript in 20 Minutes (Coffee Break Series)

Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

I read this over a couple of weekends alongside a small side project, which turned out to be the ideal way to approach it. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. The index and cross-references are surprisingly good, which matters for a book I will come back to. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. Worth picking up if you already have the basics. Set realistic expectations and you will get a lot out of it.

The clearest explanation of javascript I have come across.

I came to this book already familiar with the basics, and it still had plenty to offer. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.

Good book. The writing is direct and the author is honest about limits.

This is the third book I have read on javascript this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. Some terminology is introduced without much ceremony; I had to look a few things up along the way. The progression from chapter to chapter is well thought out; nothing feels out of order. The explanations are careful without being condescending, which is a difficult balance to strike. Good value for the price and worth the time it takes to work through properly.