Recommended Books

Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.

"The Wizard Book" - best introductory computer science book.

Alfred Aho, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey Ullman. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools.

"The Dragon Book" - every reputable computer scientist should have this book.

Raphael Finkel. Advanced Programming Language Design

A well (but unusually) organized text. The complete text is available for free online reading.

Bruce Maclellan. Principles of Programming Languages: Design, Evaluation, and Implementation.

A good survey of programming languages, focused around design principles.

Glynn Winskel. The Formal Semantics of Programming Languages : An Introduction.

If Gifford's notes on formal semantics seem impenatrable, try this book instead.