10 Books Every Drupal Developer Should Read

Drupal is an enormously welcoming community with countless online forums and community events to learn about the platform. Its open-source knowledge sharing and peer review is arguably second-to-none, and thanks to Acquia's Drupal certifications the Drupal learning process is becoming more consolidated.

However, nothing can quite beat the quality, focus, and hard work that goes into publishing a book. We’ve quizzed our Drupal developers and members of the Manchester tech community to find out which books every Drupal developer must read.

Drupal-Specific Books

Drupal 8 Module Development: Build and customize Drupal 8 modules and extensions efficiently

By Daniel Sipos

This book is a great welcome to Drupal 8, introducing you to the architecture of D8 and its subsystems, for a thorough foundational understanding. It guides you through creating your first module and continues to build upon your skills with more functionalities that all modern developers need to know.

Drupal 8 Development Cookbook - Second Edition: Harness the power of Drupal 8 with this recipe-based practical guide

By Matt Glaman

Using a fun, easy-to-follow recipe format, this book gives you an expansive look at the basic concepts of Drupal 8, in a step-by-step fashion. While this sometimes misses out on the ‘why’ of an action, it makes building new modules approachable and unintimidating for any level of developer.

Ambitious, intelligent, and a great Drupal developer? Check out our careers page.

Drupal 8 Explained: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Drupal 8

by Stephen Burge

Written in no-nonsense plain English, this book is great for any Drupal beginner. It’s been praised as the day-to-day reference book that any new developer should keep handy on their desk.

Drupal 8 Blueprints: Step along the creation of 7 professional-grade Drupal sites

By Alex Burrows

This Drupal 8 guide will take you through 7 real Drupal 8 sites to demonstrate the latest practices in action. This all-encompassing view provides a look at the reasoning and methodology behind certain practices, and context for their larger impact on the site.

The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 (Definitive Guide Apress)

by Benjamin Melancon

While new sites are being built in Drupal 8, it’s important the remember that many of the sites you’ll work on and maintain are in Drupal 7. This comprehensive book provides the nuts and bolts of any Drupal 7 site, to build a powerful and extensible system. Some concepts are slightly dated, so we’d recommend cross-checking online occasionally.

Pro Drupal 7 Development (Expert's Voice in Open Source)

by Todd Tomlinson

This book is for slightly more ambitious developers as it quickly jumps through the basic modules to the more complex. Breaking down the development of APIs and improvements to Drupal 7, this book will have any Drupal Developer producing complex modules in no time.

Essential Development Books

Many coding principles span development languages and frameworks. Here are our essentials for any developer seeking the ability to produce high quality, clean code.

The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers

By Robert C. Martin

This book delves into the difference between good and bad code. Split into 3 parts, the book first discusses principles, patterns, and practices of writing clean code. Real world case studies follow, before the book finishes with the signs of bad code and problem solving skills needed to de-bug and refresh any code base.

CSS Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems

by Lea Verou

CSS Secrets explains how to code common 'real world' solutions with CSS. Condensing the most useful and practical examples, this book is a more exciting read than the often extensive paperbacks which try to cover absolutely everything.

Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript 5e (Learning PHP, MYSQL, Javascript, CSS & HTML5)

By Robin Nixon

Begin expanding your language stack with this multifaceted book. PHP is essential for any Drupal developer as it forms the core language of the Drupal framework. Meanwhile, learning Javascript, CSS and HTML5 will empower you to deliver more complex solutions.

And lastly, an open source book about… open source

The Cathedral & the Bazaar

By Eric S. Raymond

While this piece is slightly dated, it’s underlying concepts are still highly relevant and give great insight into the origins and essence of open source. It’s also free, so definitely still worth having a skim through… if you can handle the formatting!

I hope you've found some great reads here, if you've got a personal favourite please let us know below. Also if you're interested in advancing your Drupal career, please check out our careers page to see if there's a position perfect for you.