Call me a traditionalist but i'm a big advocate of reading books. I can understand the advantages of the internet for the most up to date information but, to learn new skills, or get ideas nothing beats a good book.
Thats why i'm starting this thread, if you've got design related books that you recommend (or not) list them here and describe why they are useful or inspiring or wether they should be avoided.
I have:
Amazon.co.uk: Web Design: A Complete Introduction: Books: Nigel Chapman,Jenny Chapman
This is a good book for reference. Just about everything is covered. However, even though the book claims to be an introduction to webdesign, it is definately not for beginners. It is also full of sections that are unnecesary for web designers such as binary representations and harmonic compositions, there is also not a lot of seperation between valuable info and technical rubbish.
Amazon.co.uk: Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability: Books: Steve Krug
This book is a real help for any web designer. Purely about web usability, and contains interesting info about how people browse websites. I've only read the first few chapters but it's shaping up to being a really good read. It's well written and his points are well explained and backed up by examples. Highly recomended.
Amazon.co.uk: HTML for the World Wide Web: With XHTML and CSS (Visual QuickStart Guides): Books: Elizabeth Castro
This is a fantastic introduction to xhtml markup and CSS. This book helped me massively in mastering layout with CSS and is still a very useful for reference.