Every couple of years my mum used to re-read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She reckoned that it was so good that it deserved re-reading. I've read it once (you should too - it is a darned good read) and I'll probably read it again some day.
But there are some books that I do re-read at regular intervals. And one of them is Code Complete by Steve McConnell. If you have any pretentions at being a serious programmer you
must have read this book. I sit there with it going "Yes, yes, how true" at regular intervals and marvelling at how one bloke can be so right about this business.
If I was interviewing for software engineers the interview would start like this:
Me: Have you read McConnell?
Candidate: No
Me: Next!
Buy
this book, read it. Then, every six months or so, read one of the chapters again. I have never picked it up and read a couple of pages without taking away something useful from the text.