learning design & development
You can never have too many books to learn the ever-changing world of web design and application development. Below are recommendations of books that I've read and what other designers have used and highly recommend as well.
Joomla! {templates}
by Angie Radtke
Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3
by Ben Frain
Stylin' with CSS, 3rd Edition
by Charles Wyke-Smith
The CSS3 Anthology: Take Your Sites to New Heights
by Rachel Andrew
WordPress Bible (2nd Edition)
by Aaron Brazell
HTML5 and CSS3: Develop with Tomorrow's Standards Today
by Brian P. Hogan
Joomla! E-Commerce with VirtueMart
by Suhreed Sarkar
Joomla! Explained
by Stephen Burge
Professional Web Design 4th Edition
by Clint Eccher
The Web Designer's IDEA BOOK Vol.2
by Patrick McNeil, creator of designmeltdown.com
The Photoshop Anthology
by Corrie Haffly
CSS Anthology
by Rachel Andrew
Fancy Forms Design
by Jina Bolton, Derek Featherstone, Tim Connell
Sexy Web Design
by Elliot Jay Stocks
Handcrafted CSS
by Dan Cederholm with Ethan Marcotte
The SMASHING Book
by Smashing Magazine
Designing CSS Web Pages
by Christopher Schmitt
PHP and MySQL for dynamic web sites
by Larry Ullman
PHP Solutions
by David Powers
Bulletproof Web Design
by Dan Cederholm