We’ve recently reviewed the perfect books for learning SQL, PHP, JavaScript and Python. In this text, we’ll review Node.js books too, covering different stacks and application types, from total beginner to enterprise-grade.
Make some room in your bookshelves, since it’s book review time! 🔖 📚
Contents:
- What’s Node.js?
- The right way to Select the Best Node.js Books?
- Best Node.js Books for Beginners
- Best Web Development with Node.js Books
- Best Full-stack Node.js Books
- Express in Motion: Writing, Constructing, and Testing Node.js Applications
- Starting Node.js, Express & MongoDB Development
- Starting MERN Stack: Construct and Deploy a Full Stack MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js App
- Full-Stack React Projects: Learn MERN Stack Development by Constructing Modern Web Apps Using MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js
- Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node
- Best Advanced Node.js Books
What’s Node.js?
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js is used for developing server-side, real-time web and networking applications. It might be used to create highly scalable applications by making asynchronous programming easier.
Node.js is great for web applications that require lots of input/output operations, because it’s designed to handle many concurrent connections. It’s also great for developing chat apps, real-time tracking apps, and more.
You possibly can read What Is Node and When Should I Use It? for more of the fundamentals.
The right way to Select the Best Node.js Books?
There’s lots of ground to cover with Node.js, because it’s the one technology that will be used alone for full-stack development. That is the so called “JavaScript in all places” paradigm — coding each on the frontend and backend with just JavaScript. It wasn’t way back that programmers had to make use of one language on the frontend and a unique one on the backend.
Listed here are some things to think about when picking a Node.js book:
- When was it published? (This is kind of relevant for a rapidly evolving technology like Node.js.)
- Do you need to use Node.js for tooling your frontend development, or are you more into server-side services?
- Are you a beginner? Or are you trying to up your existing Node.js skills? Or do you have to learn enterprise-grade coding?
- Which version of Node.js do you propose to make use of?
Let’s now take a take a look at a few of the perfect Node.js books on the market!
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Best Node.js Books for Beginners
We’ll start by books targeted at those that are only starting out with Node.js.
Get Programming with Node.js
- Writer: Jonathan Wexler
- Publishing: first edition (March 15, 2019)
- Paperback: 480 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.4/5 (70 rankings)
Written by Jonathan Wexler (GitHub), lead developer for The Latest York Code and Design Academy, Get Programming with Node.js covers all the fundamentals of Node.js development, from establishing a development environment to connecting with a database, constructing a user model, authenticating user accounts, and constructing an API.
Every unit ends with a capstone project, so it’s a superb selection for those trying to get their feet wet on the earth of Node.js.
Learning Node: Moving to the Server-Side
- Writer: Shelley Powers
- Publishing: second edition (June 28, 2016)
- Paperback: 288 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.3/5 (41 rankings)
Learning Node takes you a bit further in your Node.js journey. In a comparatively short book, Shelley Powers (blog) manages to cover a good amount of technical ground, though this book is getting a bit old.
Topics include:
- frameworks and functionality for full-stack development
- module system and packages management support
- code testing with the REPL console
- support for network, security, and sockets
- OS functionality with child processes
- use in microcontrollers, microcomputers, and the Web of Things
Best Web Development with Node.js Books
Next, we’ll take a look at some Node.js books that deal with web development.
Web Development with Node & Express: Leveraging the JavaScript Stack
- Writer: Ethan Brown
- Publishing: second edition (December 3, 2019)
- Paperback: 346 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.2/5 (68 rankings)
Ethan Brown (GitHub) also starts covering Node.js from the start, but Web Development with Node & Express (repo) gets into more of the specifics of developing for the Web.
Amongst other topics covered are these:
- request and response objects
- templating
- form handling
- cookies and sessions
- middleware
- sending email
- persistence
- routing
Node.js Web Development: Server-Side Web Development Made Easy with Node 14 Using Practical Examples
- Writer: David Herron
- Publishing: fifth Edition (July 31, 2020)
- Paperback: 760 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.3/5 (81 rankings)
Because 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 author.
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 lots of ground in great detail, including microservices, cloud deployment, app testing, and app security.
Node Cookbook: Discover Solutions, Techniques, and Best Practices for Server-Side Web Development with Node.js 14
- Writer: Bethany Griggs
- Publishing: fourth edition (November 25, 2020)
- Paperback: 512 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.5/5 (60 rankings)
Node Cookbook (repo) is written by Bethany Griggs (GitHub), and it’s aimed toward intermediate and advanced learners who want to develop into proficient of their Node.js skills.
Node Cookbook is also on its fourth edition, which is a powerful achievement for a reasonably technical book.
Best Full-stack Node.js Books
Next, we’ll list our favourite Node.js books for full-stack development.
Express in Motion: Writing, Constructing, and Testing Node.js Applications
- Writer: Evan Hahn
- Publishing: first edition (April 15, 2016)
- Paperback: 256 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.3/5 (50 rankings)
One more book for learning server-side web development with Node.js is Express in Motion (repo), written by Evan Hahn (blog, GitHub), which is essentially a dive into Express.js — a preferred web framework for Node.js.
Express in Motion 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.
Starting Node.js, Express & MongoDB Development
- Writer: Greg Lim
- Publishing: independent (September 1, 2020)
- Paperback: 152 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.2/5 (224 rankings)
Starting Node.js, Express & MongoDB Development is a very good place to begin for those wanting to learn web development with Node — and learn it fast!
Written by Greg Lim (blog, GitHub), it won’t be probably the most comprehensive book on the market, nevertheless it’s among the many shortest books on this list — which for some readers may also be a very good thing. As an added bonus, the book also has a companion — and thoroughly rated — full course on Udemy.
Starting MERN Stack: Construct and Deploy a Full Stack MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js App
- Writer: Greg Lim
- Publishing: independent (June 21, 2021)
- Paperback: 159 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.2/5 (61 rankings)
MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) is a preferred tech stack for web development, and Starting MERN Stack (repo) is a fantastic introduction to it. Additionally it is probably the most updated book on this list!
By the identical creator as Starting Node.js, Express & MongoDB Development, that is one other very concise book that covers the fundamentals of the MERN stack over 26 chapters — in nearly 150 pages!
Full-Stack React Projects: Learn MERN Stack Development by Constructing Modern Web Apps Using MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js
- Writer: Shama Hoque
- Publishing: second edition (April 17, 2020)
- Paperback: 716 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.1/5 (66 rankings)
Full-Stack React Projects (repo) is one other MERN stack book, written by Shama Hoque (GitHub), a full-stack software engineer and an expert technical author.
But this can be a lengthy one (over 700 pages, making it one among the longest books on this list). It goes into far more detail and advanced topics, akin to data visualization, media streaming, SEO, and virtual reality games.
Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node
- Writer: Vasan Subramanian
- Publishing: second edition (May 13, 2019)
- Paperback: 565 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.2/5 (34 rankings)
Pro MERN Stack (repo) keeps on exploring full-stack development with Node, and takes it to the subsequent 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.
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
- Rating on Amazon: 4.6/5 (227 rankings)
Node.js Design Patterns (repo) describes itself as “the go-to book for Node.js developers trying to master a very powerful 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 probably the most rankings of the books covered in this text, and is the most effective rated as well. Its nearly 700 pages covers a big selection 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 need to take it for a test drive.
Distributed Systems with Node.js: Constructing Enterprise-Ready Backend Services
- Writer: Thomas Hunter II
- Publishing: first edition (November 24, 2020)
- Paperback: 377 pages
- Rating on Amazon: 4.5/5 (71 rankings)
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 right down to the nitty-gritty of high-performance and enterprise-grade applications.
From its back cover:
- Learn why running redundant copies of the identical Node.js service is crucial
- Know which protocol to decide on, depending on the situation
- High-quality-tune your application containers to be used in production
- Track down errors in a distributed setting to find out which service is at fault
- Simplify app code and increase performance by offloading work to a reverse proxy
- Construct dashboards to watch service health and throughput
- Discover why so many various tools are require when operating in an enterprise environment
SitePoint Premium gives you quick access to tons of books on the SitePoint Library, with many Node.js books and courses, including Node.js: Novice to Ninja by Craig Buckler (also on Amazon).
Final Thoughts
Node.js is a well established and popular platform for server-side web development, and it’s increasingly utilized in the enterprise world, because it allows developers to quickly and simply construct powerful backend services.
On this roundup, we’ve chosen books that cover a good amount of what Node.js can do. We hope these books can make it easier to start, and that you just’ll find something here to make it easier to develop into a top-level Node.js expert. 🥇🚀