Just about every C programmer I respect learned C from this book. Unlike many of the 1,000 page doorstops stuffed with CD-ROMs that have become popular, this volume is concise and powerful (if somewhat dangerous) -- like C itself. And it was written by Kernighan himself. Need we say more?

You can find bigger books about C, but you won't find one as authoritative or helpful as this reference manual. Harbison and Steele have now gone through four editions and are beginning to cover language differences which can surprise the experienced C coder moving to C++. As always, the authors do an excellent job of explaining what's standard and what it replaces. No hairy syntax has been omitted, so this volume can make wending one's way through obfuscated code, if not pleasant, at least ...