The Well-grounded Java Developer

This book has been phenomenal in aiding my mental picture of what is going on behind the scenes in a way that using the language itself never did.Every topic covered felt really well researched and presented in a way that was pleasant to read. I read this in one hour chunks before starting work and always felt myself recharged and excited to read+write code with everything new I learned now in my mental map. I think this is purely due to how well written and laid out the content is as typically textbooks are too dry and leave me exhausted from even a couple pages.One note is that the topics covered here require a functional knowledge of Java. I'd wouldn't recommend this book for somebody trying to get a job using Java or a student trying to pick the language, but for everybody else it is a fantastic read to improve the way you think about writing programs and understand what it actually looks like when its run by the JVM.