Table of Contents
Introduction
Front-End Development (which primarily functions with the help of HTML & CSS) has been one of the most sought-after professional choices among students and working professionals.
According to PayScale, the average salary of a frontend developer in the USA is around $73,000. It is a great career choice and one of the hottest job choices. According to the bureau of labor statistics, It has seen a growth of around 27% since 2014.
A frontend developer mostly works with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Today with the evolution of web technologies, there are multiple CSS frameworks such as Tailwind, Bootstrap, Semantic UI and Material UI, javascript frameworks, and libraries such as Angularjs, React, Vuejs, Next.js and many more. To gain expertise and become a master developer you should definitely read books. Books give you an overall view of the programming language or specific technology. Online courses and tutorials cannot cover everything at once. Books are a great reference tool and will help you all throughout your developer journey.
It is often overwhelming and confusing to decide which book to pick when you have millions of them. In this article, we will be talking about the 10 best books available for HTML and CSS to make it easy for you to get started.
1. HTML & CSS
Author: Jon Duckett
MRP: $ 11.88
Link: HTML & CSS
It is a book written from ground zero. It is highly recommended if you have zero coding experience. The language and style of writing are quite simple and easy to understand. It was published back in 2011 but it still holds good. You can make a concrete base for your development journey. The book contains tons of concepts divided into chapters. You will find sufficient reading material, examples and code snippets.
2. HTML5: The Missing Manual
Author: Matthew MacDonald
MRP:
Link: HTML5
HTML has been ever-evolving since it started back in 1993 with fewer tags. The latest version of HTML is HTML5. If you are looking for a book that covers everything and the latest features of HTML, then this is the book for you. It is a reference book for professionals and a great guide for beginners. It contains elaborate explanations and code. It has 518 pages that cover the latest HTML features.
3. Learning Web Design: A beginner’s Guide To HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Web Graphics
Author: Jennifer Robbins
MRP: 1,325 INR
Link: Learning Web Design
This book is like no theoretical manual. It is a friendly guide to start with learning to build websites and web pages. The book is filled with tips and tricks. It contains short quizzes and exercises to keep you engaged and practice the learned concepts. It contains all about HTML, CSS stylings, and JavaScript. The recent edition has incorporated the latest developments such as Flexbox, Grids for page layout. This book contains content for Responsive web design which is a must to learn for mobile devices. You also get bonus learnings of SVG graphics.
4. CSS3: The Missing Manual
Author: David Sawyer McFarland
MRP: 800 INR
Link: CSS3 The Missing Manual
CSS to HTML is highly essential to make your web pages look attractive and modern. You can master the power of CSS with the CSS: The missing manual. It contains elaborate explanations, real-world examples, and step-by-step tutorials to guide you through building beautiful website designs.
You will learn about CSS that will work consistently across all browsers. SEO is a major concern with modern websites which you will learn about in this book. You get to know about various modern effects such as drop shadow, rollover effect, and multi-column design. CSS3 is the most recent CSS version. It supports almost all major browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, and even Internet Explorer 8.
5. CSS Secrets
Author: Lea Verou
MRP: $21.74-$26.99
Link: CSS Secrets
This is no traditional book but justifies its title. The book contains 47 undocumented techniques and tips. It is focused on intermediate and advanced developers. It solves a wide variety of web development problems. It deals with various topics in CSS such as background and borders, shapes, Visual Effects, Typography, Structure and Layout, transition and animation. This can be really fun to read and apply for those looking for something new that you can do with CSS.
6. Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3
Author: Ben Frain
MRP: $27.99-$39.99
Link: Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3
Desktop-only websites are outdated now. Everyone carries a phone today and smartphones have made it easier than ever to access the internet from anywhere. The websites need to be adaptive to the size of mobile phones. These web designs are known to be responsive web design which responds to the size of the screens and adapt accordingly. This book has a clear focus on responsive web design. You will learn media queries in great detail. The CSS3 selectors and SVG animations are some of the most recent developments that you can learn through this book.
7. HTML
Author: Darshan Magdum
MRP: $0.67 [Kindle Edition]
Link: HTML
This book is a complete reference book for HTML. You will get all the tags and explanations of the working of HTML in this book. It is quite affordable and easy to refer. No heavy textbook but just the right to put up a simple guide for a beginner.
8. Front-End Web Development
Author: Gerardus Blokdyk
MRP: $37.97 [Kindle Edition]
Link: Front-End Web Development
The book acts as the complete guide to achieving your front-end development goals. This very edition contains self-assessment tools that have excel dashboards to manage your progress. It also has extra resources for your projects. It will ensure your development to be relevant and in continuous progression. The latest edition has an online PDF of the book with multiple resources.
9. Front-End Web Developer
Author: Mark Sapp
MRP: NA
Link: Front-End Web Developer
Projects are the best way to learn to build something. This book can be termed as textual “Bootcamp”. It contains examples that increment after each step showing you the progress you can make. After each chapter, there are quizzes focused on the ability to write proper code, interpret code and apply learnt concepts.
This book takes learning a step ahead by involving videos and online exercises to make it practical and productive learning for you. You will be making projects such as one-page marketing sites, multimedia showcases such as video, audio, and rich text content, and a portfolio page to showcase your experience. You will be learning all about HTML, CSS, and Javascript along with Bootstrap and AngularJS. These are highly in-demand frameworks and libraries for web development. This is a job-focused guide that gives you projects to showcase at the end of your reading to demonstrate your skills.
10. HTML5, CSS3 & Bootstrap 4 All-in-One
Author: Mike Ludo
MRP: $70
Link: Book
This is a complete frontend guide. It contains the complete introduction of HTML5, CSS3 And Bootstrap4. This book is not all text but practical to provide code to enhance coding skills alongside. It strikes the correct balance between explanation and visualisation of code with easy-to-follow examples. Bootstrap is one of the most sought after CSS frameworks. It works on the mobile-first approach. It allows you to make responsive web designs. You don’t require any previous knowledge to get started with web development with this book.
Conclusion
These were some of the best books available. Take your front-end developer to journey a level up with these books. The practice is the key. Learning the concepts in the first half of the journey which you can easily get with these books. Applying the concepts to design beautiful web designs and applications would be the path changer. Go ahead, experiment, learn and enjoy the developer journey.
Frequently Asked Questions
Definitely NO. It is not advisable to read all the books. You can choose some according to your proficiency and refer them, time and again. It is more emphasised to practice by making small projects.
It is not a necessity to know frameworks from the very beginning. If you are a complete newbie, you should focus on your basics such as HTML, CSS, problem-solving using vanilla JavaScript. Vanilla JavaScript is nothing fancy just the plain Javascript programming language. Frameworks are based on the programming languages so once you are proficient in the language, acquiring skills with the frameworks can be a cakewalk but the opposite can be frustrating and time-consuming.
Most of the developers struggle with CSS. You should not worry because of CSS. The more you build with CSS the better you become. There isn’t everything you can learn by reading but CSS is more like math, the better you practice, the stronger it gets.
Happy Learning with Coding Ninjas!
