The Algorithm Design Manual by Skeina got me hooked on algorithm design, after the CLRS book discouraged me. Skeina does a fantastic job of conveying the intuit

The Algorithm Design Manual by Skeina got me hooked on algorithm design, after the CLRS book discouraged me. Skeina does a fantastic job of conveying the intuition behind how each algorithm works, so it's not a cookbook or nitpicky textbook. He also has these wonderful war stories of problems he solved, and example problems like "which telephone exchanges do you need to bomb in order to take the grid down?"