There's too much great, exciting computer science pedagogy out there to waste time on dismal, uninspiring material. Poorly-chosen required reading for courses i

There's too much great, exciting computer science pedagogy out there to waste time on dismal, uninspiring material. Poorly-chosen required reading for courses is an unfortunate exception.. A lot of the classic books in the Scheme world, I think, are really enjoyable, besides being highly edifying. SICP, The Little Schemer (and sundry sequels), Essentials of Programming Languages. Browsing through The Jargon File has routinely been energizing for me, but admittedly a lot of the content is pretty antiquated, and I might be among the last generation of programmers who can reasonably identify with the book. It might look superficially boring, but Don Knuth's Art of Computer Programming is really engaging. The Inmates are Running the Asylum might inspire toward building some highly usable software.