Scott Taylor's bookshelf
Here are some books which I have read that I can personally recommend. The books are listed in no particular order.
Pro Spring
A comprehensive introduction and tutorial to Spring. From dependency injection, to aspect-oriented programming, to detail coverage on using Spring for persistence, transactions, messaging, scheduling, email, remoting, and MVC web applications, it provides excellent coverage of the Spring framework.
ISBN: 1-59059-461-4
J2EE Development without EJB
Written for architects and developers, this book begins by examining the pros and cons of EJB technology. The book then goes on to present lightweight alternatives to EJBs. If you are working with enterprise Java, you should read this book.
ISBN: 0-7645-5831-5
J2EE Design and Development
This book is a real-world, how-to guide on making J2EE work in practice. It is loaded with valuable nuggets and insight.
ISBN: 0-7645-4385-7
Designing with web standards
It takes Zeldman quite a while (five chapters) to move from explaining why we should use web standards to explaining how to do it. If you are already sold on using web standards, you may find the first chapters a little long winded. But hang in there because the rest of the book makes up for it. Zeldman delivers a witty, wise, and important companion for designers and programmers.
ISBN: 0-7357-1201-8
More Eric Meyer on CSS
If you hand-code your Web pages, are good with HTML and have dabbled with CSS but want to take it to the next level, then this book is for you.
ISBN: 0-7357-1425-8
Effective Java
This book provides over 50 best practices and tips for writing better Java code. Each tip is well explained and accurate. All professional Java programmers should have a solid understanding of everything in this book.
ISBN: 0-201-31005-8
Current status
TaylorIT is fully booked until November 2010.
Quote worthy
To impose clarity upon complexity through deep and careful design-thinking is the critical achievement of the master programmer. David Gelernter