Top Books on CSS Every Software Developer Should Read

Best CSS books for beginners

To start learning CSS, here is a list of the best books on CSS for beginners.

A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS

HTML and CSS go hand in hand in the web development process. This book teaches the fundamentals of HTML and CSS with a practical approach. It is beneficial for the beginners as it it delivers the information and knowledge in shorter chapters that are combined with interactive exercises.

With this intuitive approach, newbies can understand CSS concepts better and slowly advance towards practical learning. This book also helps you create websites with simple to moderate complexity. Everything is explained in non-technical language that makes it easier to understand.

Reading this book and working on the exercise will give you a complete understanding of CSS. The exercises are based on cognitive research showing that learners have high chances of understanding a concept when they spend time on its practical implication. Although it is a book for beginners, it can also help advanced learners to brush up on their basic concepts.

HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites

This book has been liked by about 95% of Google readers and has a decent rating on various online platforms. It is an excellent alternative to learning CSS for its visual learning approach.

From general knowledge seekers to newbie programming professionals, it is for everyone who wants to learn HTML and CSS in a fun and bright way. It is full of glossy and colorful pages explaining CSS concepts such as text, layout, colors, images, boxes, etc. For visual learners, this is a decent book to learn HTML and CSS styling practices and better understand the coding principles.

Learning Web Design

This is another decent book for newbie programmers to gain a deeper understanding of CSS without no programming experience. The book will not just take you just through CSS but also through its supporting technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and web design.

The book begins by taking you through the basics of developing web pages. It teaches how web pages work, explains how to create and optimize them, how to build HTML pages with images, links, and text. It also covers how to use CSS for backgrounds, animation, and colors.

Its revised edition is ideal for beginners and experienced professionals to understand the fundamentals of web design. It also covers how CSS works well with HTML and JavaScript in web designing to develop responsive websites.

HTML and CSS QuickStart Guide

This book will teach you how to master CSS. It will take you through the HTML and CSS fundamentals in a synchronized manner. It covers everything from CSS styles, CSS elements, HTML tags, and how they are bought together to come up with a website.

The book uses an interesting approach to teach the principles of HTML and CSS. It talks about responsive design principles and site structure, how to make projects live, new design fundamentals, and the correct Markup Practices for beginners.

The book's second part takes you towards an advanced overview of HTML and CSS while offering detailed advice on how to build websites. It is designed for beginners and provides a series of visual learning examples and exercises that prove to be a great resource to learn coding and build websites.

Head First HTML and CSS: A Learner’s Guide to Creating Standards-Based Web Pages

This book is a combined work from Eric Freeman and Elizabeth Robson. It is one of the best books to learn the fundamentals of CSS and HTML. It not just teaches how to implement the given concepts but also covers why it is done in a particular way.

It is a book that will clear all your fundamental doubts about HTML and help you create web pages by leveraging the potential of HTML and CSS. The book is written in a great way to help you know and understand everything, even if you have no prior knowledge of HTML and CSS.

Best CSS books for advanced learners

For experienced professionals, here are the advanced CSS books for experts.

CSS in Depth

This is an advanced CSS book written by Keith J. Grant, a senior developer renowned for creating and maintaining some high-end websites. This is an ideal book for intermediate or advanced learners with basic knowledge of CSS and HTML.

It is designed to advance your technical skills with the help of a series of practical examples. It offers a series of practical examples and impactful practices that improves the technical skills of the readers and gives them design inspiration.

It focuses on various features like units, floats, and pattern libraries. Overall it is one of the best CSS books to learn advanced CSS and find maintainable and reusable code that comes together to create great designs.

CSS: The Definitive Guide

This is an advanced CSS book written by Eric Meyer and Estelle Weyl for web designers and developers. The book offers a detailed guide on CSS implementation. It is a learners’ guide to accessibility and complex CSS page styling. It focuses on efficiency and covers various CSS3 concepts such as backgrounds, colors, gradients, the grid layout system, filters, blending, clipping, and other related features.

The third edition of this book covers detailed knowledge of the updated version of CSS, highlighting every particular CSS property. It covers topics on lists and generated content, user interface, paged media, table layout, etc. Overall it is a complete sourcebook for advanced CSS learners.

CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web 5th Edition

CSS pocket reference is a popular book by Eric A. Meyer, an internationally renowned expert on this subject. He came up with this book when he realized there is a lot of CSS information available on the web, but it is nowhere presented in a compiled and well-framed manner.

To overcome this issue, he came up with this book. It is a reference book for professionals to find answers to complex CSS problems and gain all the essential knowledge they need in a precise and well-explained manner.

The fifth edition of this book has been revised for CSS3 and is a must-read for advanced developers and designers. This book includes everything from crucial CSS concepts to CSS selectors and properties arranged alphabetically. It is basically for exploring CSS concepts, queries, selectors, and properties to learn new features that can enhance your CSS practice.

Responsive Web Design With HTML5 and CSS

This is one of the latest CSS books you can choose to read as an advanced HTML and CSS learner. This book will help you understand the latest CSS and HTML5 updates to create user interfaces that work on desktops, phones, tablets, and other associated devices. It offers a series of tips and tricks associated with HTML and CSS that are well presented for understanding and practical implementation.

It explains the concept of responsive web design and its importance in web development. The book covers various new developments in design such as CSS Scroll Snap, variable fonts, etc. It is a book that developers can use for reference with their everyday coding.

Final words

Finding the best books on CSS can be intimidating when you have so many options to choose from. However, with the above list, the task is much easier for both newbies and experienced CSS learners. To sum up the best books for CSS mastery, we can say that A Smart Way to Learn HTML & CSS is the best book for beginners. And for professionals and advanced learners, CSS: The Definitive Guide is the best book to consider. So start learning now!