What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

Question

If you could go back in time and tell yourself to read a specific book at the beginning of your career as a developer, which book would it be?

I expect this list to be varied and to cover a wide range of things. For me, the book would be Code Complete. After reading that book, I was able to get out of the immediate task mindset and begin to think about the bigger picture, quality and maintainability.

Answer 1

For a truly deep read, I'd suggest Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach. He dives pretty deep into many of the issues that programmers face every day- recursion, verifiability, proof, and boolean algebra. Great read, a little off the beaten path, occasionally challenging, and extremely rewarding once you fight through it and process what you've read.