Make some room in your bookshelves, because it’s book review time! 🔖 📚
What is Node.js?
Node.js is a server-side platform built on Google Chrome’s JavaScript Engine (V8 JavaScript Engine). It allows developers to run JavaScript on the server, creating server-side applications with JavaScript.
Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model, which makes it efficient and scalable for building fast, real-time applications, such as chat applications, online games, and streaming services. It also provides a rich library of modules, known as the Node Package Manager (NPM), which developers can use to perform various tasks, such as connecting to databases, handling HTTP requests, reading and writing files, and much more.
Node.js was created in 2009 and has since become a popular choice for server-side development. Its popularity is due to its ability to handle a large number of concurrent connections with high performance and its ease of use, as many developers are already familiar with JavaScript. Companies such as Netflix, Walmart, and PayPal, have adopted Node.js for building their web applications.
How to Choose the Best Node.js Books?
When choosing the best Node.js books, it’s important to consider several factors to ensure that the book is a good fit for your needs and skill level:
- Level of difficulty: Consider whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced developer. Some books are geared towards beginners, while others are more advanced and suitable for experienced developers.
- Content: Make sure the book covers the topics you’re interested in and covers them in enough depth. You should also consider whether the book provides practical examples, exercises, and case studies to help reinforce the concepts covered.
- Writing style: Some books are written in a more technical and dry style, while others are written in a more conversational style that is easier to read and understand. Consider your personal preferences and choose a book that you enjoy reading.
- Date of publication: Make sure the book is up to date and covers the latest version of Node.js. If you’re using an older version of Node.js, check that the book covers that version as well.
- Reputation of the author: Consider the author’s experience and expertise in Node.js. Reading books written by experienced developers can help you learn from their real-world experience and avoid common mistakes.
- User reviews: Read reviews and ratings from other readers to see what they like and don’t like about the book. This can help you get a sense of the book’s quality and whether it’s a good fit for your needs.
By considering these factors, you can choose the best Node.js book to help you learn and improve your skills in server-side development.
Best Node.js Books for Beginners
We’ll start by looking at books targeted at those who are just starting out with Node.js.
1. Beginning Node.js
Author: Basarat Ali Syed
This is one of the best books for newbies who are starting to learn the Node.js programming language. Basarat Ali Syed is a senior developer at a software firm in Australia. Besides writing books, he also runs his channel on Youtube where he teaches newbie developers how to apply Node.js programming language in their projects and real-life applications.
This book starts with the simple JS primer, explaining the JavaScript basics, and then moves forward to the main streamline which is Node.js. The book covers all the fundamental ideas, including streams, events, and how to create full-stack Node.js applications. This book also helps you to learn how to write and test your applications on the Internet, thus making it one of the best books for beginners.
2. Practical Node.js
Author: Azat Mardan
Azat Mardan is an accomplished developer at Fellow Capitals. He is the author of 12 books and numerous online courses on JS and Node.Js.
In this book, you will learn about how to build a wide range of scalable real-world web applications using a professional development toolkit. The author does dive into topics such as how to use the full-stack of applications, including the Express.js and Hapi frameworks, the MongoDB database, and numerous other packages, standards, and frameworks in the ecosystem. Although this book is suitable for beginners, having some working knowledge of Node.js beforehand is useful.
3. Express in Action
Author: Evan Hahn
This book is especially useful for those who have gained some practical experience writing server-side applications. Intending to enable Express to create, test, and automate the development of a Node.js application, this book examines important development methodologies and exposes readers to an ecosystem of tools and libraries.
The author is a skilled developer who routinely gives back to the open-source Node, Express, and JS communities.
4. Node.js the Right Way
Author: Jim R.Wilson
This book is best for those who have attained the knowledge and theoretical understanding of Node.js and want to understand the practical examples. This book covers all the practical examples one needs to know.
5. Web Development with Node and Express
Author: Ethan Brown
Once you have started to build applications in Node.js and Express. This book will help you further understand the key concepts of JS stack. This book will give you the complete guide for building single-page, multi-page, and hybrid web applications with Express.
Best Web Development with Node.js Books
Next, we’ll look at some Node.js books that focus on web development.
6. Web Development with Node & Express: Leveraging the JavaScript Stack
- Author: Ethan Brown
- Publishing: second edition (December 3, 2019)
- Paperback: 346 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.2/5 (68 ratings)
Ethan Brown (GitHub) also starts covering Node.js from the beginning, but Web Development with Node & Express (repo) gets into more of the specifics of developing for the Web.
Among other topics covered are these:
- request and response objects
- templating
- form handling
- cookies and sessions
- middleware
- sending email
- persistence
- routing
7. Node.js Web Development: Server-Side Web Development Made Easy with Node 14 Using Practical Examples
- Author: David Herron
- Publishing: fifth Edition (July 31, 2020)
- Paperback: 760 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.3/5 (81 ratings)
As the title suggests, Node.js Web Development (repo) is about server-side web development with Node.js, and it’s written by David Herron, an experienced programmer, software engineer and technical writer.
This book is in its fifth edition, and at nearly 800 pages in length, it’s also the longest book on this list! So it’s no surprise that it covers a lot of ground in great detail, including microservices, cloud deployment, app testing, and app security.
8. Node Cookbook: Discover Solutions, Techniques, and Best Practices for Server-Side Web Development with Node.js 14
- Author: Bethany Griggs
- Publishing: fourth edition (November 25, 2020)
- Paperback: 512 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.5/5 (60 ratings)
Node Cookbook (repo) is written by Bethany Griggs (GitHub), and it’s aimed at intermediate and advanced learners who are looking to become proficient in their Node.js skills.
Node Cookbook also is on its fourth edition, which is an impressive achievement for a fairly technical book.
Best Full-stack Node.js Books
Next, we’ll list our favorite Node.js books for full-stack development.
9. Express in Action: Writing, Building, and Testing Node.js Applications
- Author: Evan Hahn
- Publishing: first edition (April 15, 2016)
- Paperback: 256 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.3/5 (50 ratings)
Yet another book for learning server-side web development with Node.js is Express in Action (repo), written by Evan Hahn (blog, GitHub), which is basically a dive into Express.js — a popular web framework for Node.js.
Express in Action starts from the very foundations of Express, to views and templates with Pug and EJS, persisting data with MongoDB, and deployments to Heroku. A word of caution, though: it’s getting a bit old.
10. Beginning Node.js, Express & MongoDB Development
- Author: Greg Lim
- Publishing: independent (September 1, 2020)
- Paperback: 152 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.2/5 (224 ratings)
Beginning Node.js, Express & MongoDB Development is a good starting point for those wanting to learn web development with Node — and learn it fast!
Written by Greg Lim (blog, GitHub), it might not be the most comprehensive book out there, but it’s among the shortest books on this list — which for some readers might also be a good thing. As an added bonus, the book also has a companion — and very well rated — full course on Udemy.
11. Beginning MERN Stack: Build and Deploy a Full Stack MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js App
- Author: Greg Lim
- Publishing: independent (June 21, 2021)
- Paperback: 159 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.2/5 (61 ratings)
MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) is a popular tech stack for web development, and Beginning MERN Stack (repo) is a great introduction to it. It is also the most updated book on this list!
By the same author as Beginning Node.js, Express & MongoDB Development, this is another very concise book that covers the basics of the MERN stack over 26 chapters — in just about 150 pages!
12. Full-Stack React Projects: Learn MERN Stack Development by Building Modern Web Apps Using MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js
- Author: Shama Hoque
- Publishing: second edition (April 17, 2020)
- Paperback: 716 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.1/5 (66 ratings)
Full-Stack React Projects (repo) is another MERN stack book, written by Shama Hoque (GitHub), a full-stack software engineer and a professional technical writer.
But this is a lengthy one (over 700 pages, making it one of the longest books on this list). It goes into way more detail and advanced topics, such as data visualization, media streaming, search engine optimization, and virtual reality games.
13. Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node
- Author: Vasan Subramanian
- Publishing: second edition (May 13, 2019)
- Paperback: 565 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.2/5 (34 ratings)
Pro MERN Stack (repo) keeps on exploring full-stack development with Node, and takes it to the next level.
Written by Vasan Subramanian (blog, GitHub), Pro MERN Stack covers GraphQL, architecture and ESLint, modularization and webpack, server-side rendering, and other advanced topics.
Best Advanced Node.js Books
Lastly, here’s our pick of Node.js books for advanced learners.
14. Node.js Design Patterns: Design and Implement Production-Grade Node.js Applications Using Proven Patterns and Techniques
- Authors: Mario Casciaro and Luciano Mammino
- Publishing: third edition (July 29, 2020)
- Paperback: 664 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.6/5 (227 ratings)
Node.js Design Patterns (repo) describes itself as “the go-to book for Node.js developers looking to master the most important patterns and best practices to deploy Node.js applications to production with confidence”.
Written by two experienced software engineers, Mario Casciaro (GitHub) and Luciano Mammino (GitHub), it has the most ratings of the books covered in this article, and is one of the best rated as well. Its nearly 700 pages covers a wide range of Node.js design advanced patterns and techniques.
Node.js Design Patterns also has a companion official website with a sample chapter, in case you want to take it for a test drive.
15. Distributed Systems with Node.js: Building Enterprise-Ready Backend Services
- Author: Thomas Hunter II
- Publishing: first edition (November 24, 2020)
- Paperback: 377 pages
- Ranking on Amazon: 4.5/5 (71 ratings)
Thomas Hunter II (GitHub) is a software engineer who writes extensively about Node and actively contributes to Node projects.
In Distributed Systems with Node.js (repo), Thomas gets down to the nitty-gritty of high-performance and enterprise-grade applications.
From its back cover:
- Learn why running redundant copies of the same Node.js service is necessary
- Know which protocol to choose, depending on the situation
- Fine-tune your application containers for use in production
- Track down errors in a distributed setting to determine which service is at fault
- Simplify app code and increase performance by offloading work to a reverse proxy
- Build dashboards to monitor service health and throughput
- Find out why so many different tools are require when operating in an enterprise environment
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, Node.js is a powerful and popular platform for building server-side applications. Its event-driven, non-blocking I/O model makes it efficient and scalable for building real-time applications, while its large library of modules and packages makes it easy to extend its functionality.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, there are many resources available to help you learn and improve your skills in Node.js, including books, online tutorials, and courses. By choosing the best resources for your needs and skill level, you can develop a strong foundation in Node.js and build powerful and scalable applications.
As the demand for Node.js continues to grow, it is a valuable skill to have and can open up many opportunities for career growth and advancement in the field of web development.
