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Java has already been the most popular language for over three decades.
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10 years ago, I did a compilation of most popular java books . With recent changes in Java I have decided to collect the latest books for beginners in 2021. Surprisingly nothing much has changed in terms of books that are available for beginners. However, it has become more overwhelming to learn java from scratch since it has many more features now.
This list of books focuses mainly on simplified books for learning java. These books try to share simple concepts and examples in a way that any beginner can quickly grasp and start playing with java.Â
I have kept simple criteria to consider these books. I picked books that make it easy to learn and help make faster progress. To do this I looked at book reviews on various books websites and consolidated this list with the most popular choices.Â
If you are already comfortable in java, look for our advanced java books that focus on deeper concepts and more advanced features.
Head First Java: A Brain-Friendly Guide
(By: Kathy Sierra )
Head First Java has been in the top list of beginners books for a very long time. With more than 1500 positive reviews, it seems to be the most popular choice of Java learners on Amazon, Google Play and Barnes and Noble.
This book assumes the reader has a basic understanding of programming.
The book covers Java programming fundamentals along with examples to play and learn. Some readers may not like the style of the book, but if you do then it may be a fun journey learning java using this book.
The author of this book, Kathy Sierra is the creator of the head-first series of books. She is a professional programming instructor and game developer. Her work has been admired by millions of readers.
Java: The Complete Reference
(By: Herbert Schildt )
20 Years ago, I had personally studied java using the second edition of this book during my computer science course. This was a recommended book by my java teacher at college where we took a crash course to code in Java in 2 weeks.
It takes a long time to master java, however this book did help me get started quickly on my beginners programming skills in java.
The book assumes basic programming concepts are already known to the reader and it focuses purely on Java related features and syntaxes.
The recently published edition of this book is Edition 11.
Even though this book is very big, it has a quick read format that makes it ideal for learning few concepts at a time. The recent edition (edition 11) of this book covers the Java 11 concepts and makes it a good reference book. This may be ideal to learn concepts and examples by doing a quick lookup. Herbert Schildt, the author of this book has written many books on programming languages including C, C++ and C#.
Beginning Programming with Java For Dummies
(By: Dr. Barry Burd )
This book is another option that keeps things simple for beginners. The book introduces a concept and explains it in detail.
The fifth edition of this book was released in 2017 yet it is a decent reference book for basic java concepts.
Some readers mentioned that the author of this book did respond to their queries on email and helped them learn the concept thoroughly.
Some readers mentioned that examples were not enough in the book, that can make hands on practice while learning a little challenging.
Dr. Barry Burd, the author of this book is a computer science professor at Drew University in Madison.