List of books (1st edition)

• 
  Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
  
  A reference on the software design field, the famous GoF book is worth its status. It provides a solid ground for thinking about software projects, from the architecture to implementation and refactoring. Even if not all the patterns or their categorization are unanimously accepted (see, for example, Steve Yegge commentaries about the Interpreter pattern or the various discussions about the Singleton pattern on the web), you should know them in order to take part in the debates and decide when to apply them or not. The book organization is exceptional, which helps a lot in a book about patterns. A must-read for every software engineer.
• 
  The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition
  
  Is it possible that a book written 40 years ago, a 30-year paper and a review of both made 20 years ago are still relevant today? The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition proves that it is. The original content is full of good observations around the essential and accidental (in Fred Brooks' own words) aspects of the software task. The anniversary edition adds a copy of the excellent paper No Silver Bullet, published in 1985, besides new commentaries by the author. In a field where many things change fast, The Mythical Man-Month passes the test of time with great praise.
• 
  Swarm Intelligence
  
  The focus of this book is the PSO algorithm. Nevertheless, it also offers a good introduction, in the first part of the book, to evolutionary algorithms in general, covering historical and even some philosophical questions related to the subject. The second part shows the PSO algorithm itself and brings comments about the many ways to optimize it. The algorithm is short and simple, so it's not hard to understand (although they could have simplified it even more by using a different notation instead of greek letters). Some reviewers consider the first part as ramblings, but I have to admit I like it better. Anyway, the book as a whole offers a very good content.