Like most developers, I’ve got a handful of reference material at my desk that I use for any given project. But as time goes on, certain books become of less value.

Rather than through them out, I thought I’d try to give then out to those of you that are looking to get your feet wet in code, brush up on your development chops, or just add to your own bookshelf. So, I’ve got four books that I’m giving away completely free (all I ask if that you pay shipping):

  • Agile Web Development with Rails, Second Edition. A heads up: This is not the most recent entry into the series. It’s still a strong book, but doesn’t cover some of the most recent topics (such as the Asset Pipeline, CoffeeScript, etc).
  • Teach Yourself C in 21 Days, Fourth Edition. Highly recommend this for someone looking to get familiar with lower-level programming at a very introductory level.  Teach all the basics constructs of the C language.
  • jQuery In Action, First Edition. Stellar book for those of you looking to learn jQuery. It assumes you know very little about the library and teaches by example. By the time you finish the book, you should be more than capable in thinking of “doing things the jQuery way,” and knowing where to look in the API when you need additional help.
  • PHP In Action. A solid book on software engineering in PHP. Covers basics in PHP, test-driven development, object-oriented programming, and more. Highly recommend this for budding PHP programmers looking to get deeper into the language and into development.

Here’s how to enter: Simply leave a comment with the title of what book you want. Ideally, one book per person. First come, first serve. I’ll use the order in which comments come in to the blog. After that, I’ll email you privately to get your address.

I’ll be in touch by Friday.