Effective Java is the one I see recommended most often. I also wanted to add something I answered on a similar question in another less public forum a few days

Effective Java is the one I see recommended most often. I also wanted to add something I answered on a similar question in another less public forum a few days ago, but it turns out to be in another (human) language so I'll just add a summary: > 1. Java IDEs are way more sophisticated than anything else except Visual Studio with ReSharper. Learn one of them. I disliked Java strongly until someone used a couple of minutes here and there to show me navigation and editing. (Hint for people who come from editors: Java IDEs understand the difference between the same letters i.e. word in different context. If you rename a variable in one method it won't touch other things that contains the same characters elsewhere in the file.) 2. Learn Maven and/or Gradle. You know you've got it right when everything works as expected and there's next to nothing left. 3. Don't trust everyone: people in this thread mention consultant Java. I was exposed to it early and it only took a few months to realize that certain (well paid I assume) consultants knew less than me: adding log statements and rebooting application servers every time they debugged (the correct way is of course to set a breakpoint and single step.) I also cleaned up a lot of their code, including a 6000 lines of XML implementation of a crude authorization framework that they had made because they didn't get Facelets.