Head First

not career altering but worth to mention "Head First Series" when it comes to tech books.

The head first series are great. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/head-first-html/9781449... (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/head-first-html/9781449324469/) It's not super advanced but gives you a great foundation and you learn by doing. After that it's best to pick out a challenging project you want to build for yourself and tackle that. Once you have a good foundation in css I'd recommend checking out Tailwind CSS and Tailwind UI.

Just a suggestion, but what about books which don't look at all technical but are full of cartoons and humour, eg "Land of Lisp" ( http://nostarch.com/lisp.htm ) , the Head First books and so on ? These might be acceptable. Secondly, one of the most common comments on HN is how few programmers are also any good at design, so perhaps books focused on design, usability and typography would be another option.

The Head First Series is "Learn the Hard Way" backed by modern educational theory - hands on, engaging multiple learning pathways, and offering problems at various levels of difficulty even on relatively advanced topics. They are structured based on ideas about how people learn rather than ideas about how they should learn. That's not say that "Learn the Hard Way" is not useful or that I don't admire what Zed Shaw is doing. I think it is really good work.

I love the Head first series books. Even though I already had experience with other languages when I started, Head First Java explained things clearly and enjoyably! http://amzn.to/ybDBJv

This is a good suggestion , as the Chris Pine book is a very easy, quick read. Also, the O'Reilly Head First books are usually good - with a fairly light-hearted, humorous approach for starters - and their "Head First Programming" book is Python based. ( http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596802387.do?sortby=publ... (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596802387.do?sortby=publicationDate#PowerReview) ) Does it have to be a book ? Maybe a subscription to something like Code School ( http://www.codeschool.com ) would also be quite cool, as they have courses like "Try Ruby" and "Rails for Zombies" .

There are a few math books in the "Head First" series (which I always love). Those might serve more as refreshers for most people, but for a true math noob (like me), they have really helped.