Given your goals, you might want start by reading books like The Pragmatic Programmer and Code Complete cover-to-cover, and taking it easier with the theory boo

Given your goals, you might want start by reading books like The Pragmatic Programmer and Code Complete cover-to-cover, and taking it easier with the theory books. You want your basic software development skills to be solid before you start going into proving algorithm complexities. Beyond that, off the top of my head the number one theory book for working programmers would be Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and the new guy.