10 Ways To Master CSS (Best Books)

Nowadays more and more people are eager to start digging deeper into knowing CSS and HTML. Some of them would like to become the part of a professional programming and web design community, and some of them just want to enhance and innovate the visual look of their own blogs.

Either way if you happen to be one of them go no further than here. On this page you will find neat and brief descriptions of some of the best selling CSS books out there on Amazon webstore, at your service.

1. HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites

This book takes an absolutely different approach to HTML and CSS than the majority of dry-written teaching and technical literature. The authors have made their best efforts to introduce HTML and CSS to the wider audience making the topics more accessible than ever. Either if you are a student or if building websites is your hobby, or you already dare to call yourself a professional – the book would fulfill your needs perfectly well.

The full coloured edition explains the complex topics in a simple and engaging way. Additionally the books’ structure allows you to consequentially progress through the pages from chapter one until the very end or to go more independent with choosing any point of your interest and starting from that place.

Available in hardcover as a part of set – Web Design with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery, 9781119038634; and also in softcover – Web Design with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery, 9781118907443.

Download / Buy HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites Book

2. Web Design with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery Set (First Edition)

If you happen to be the person who wants to know HTML and CSS before starting the mastering of JavaScript and jQuery, take a close look at this double book set combining the titles “JavaScript & jQuery: Interactive Front-End Development” and “HTML & CSS: Designing and Building Web Sites”.

The package covers lots of topics and paragraphs such as structure, images, links, text, CSS-styling, forms, colors, box-thinking, lists & tables styling, and even Google analytics, HTML5 and SEO.

A very clear and simple visual approach is used in the “JavaScript & jQuery’s” introduction with a vast usage of infographics, photos and diagrams.

So this handy doublebook set appears to be a really effective learning tool and just perfectly suites for the beginning web designers and frontend developers.

Download / Buy Web Design with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery Set 

3. Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics (4th Edition)

This guide is a perfect and friendly start for those who have actually nothing but strong desire in building web pages. At the very beginning you will be introduced to simple and useful information considering the work of Web and web pages and then slowly grow up right from there. After your reading through the book you will have all the needed skills to create a simple website with multiple column pages and it would be perfectly adaptable for mobile devices.

By digging through this tutorial you will learn lots of useful aspects about using the latest techniques, practices and nowadays web standards including CSS3 and HTML5. There are some good exercises in each chapter to help you study all these different techniques and even short puzzles to assure you have understood the key concepts.

The book is suited for people of various skill levels, students or professionals who are either at the very beginning of the path or just brushing their existing skills.

The guide will definitely help you in building HTML pages filled with all kinds of text, images, links, forms and tables. You would be able to apply any colours to your web page elements, format the text to your own taste and even apply simple animation effects. Your pages will have good responsive web design which means they will look great and will be perfectly adaptive for the modern mobile devices of all kinds.

You will learn the basics of JavaScript works and will know the reasons of its extreme importance in modern web design. You will understand the optimizing of your web graphics so they could be downloaded as fast as possible – this small but solid feature will make your website stand out among all the other slower ones.

Download / Buy Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics

4. A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS: Learn it faster. Remember it longer (Volume 2)

This book has a very practical learn-by-doing approach to reader. Its chapters are short and paired with interactive online tasks that would help you teach the basics of HTML and CSS. Its written and aimed for beginners but would greatly fit those experienced developers who want to sharpen their skills even more. The book will guide and prepare the reader to code medium complexity websites. The practice time is intended to be two to three times longer than reading. This effective approach is based on a cognitive research that has showed the four time increased retention in the situations when the learner has to retrieve the information by himself. The explanations are written in plain and non-technical language that people of all sorts of backgrounds would easily understand. Coding examples and illustrations are included.

Download / Buy A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS Book

5. Head First HTML and CSS: A Learner’s Guide to Creating Standards-Based Web Pages

This is an absolute must-buy for those who want to start learning HTML and have absolutely no previous experience in this field. The book makes sense for total newcomers and is promised to help in creating the web pages just from scratch. It also provides instructions for maintaining and expanding them over time so they would fit and work in all the browsers and mobile devices. Additional and necessary material on CSS is also provided.

The book is written in a pleasant, visually rich format and is easy to read. The latest researches in learning theory and cognitive science were used while creating it so be assured that those HTML and CSS knowledge will stick in your head very well.

Download / Buy Head First HTML and CSS Book

6. CSS Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems (1st Edition)

This practical guide is intended to be studied by advanced (or at least intermediate) CSS developers. A lot of undocumented techniques and elegant solutions are provided by CSS expert Lea Verou.

CSS Secrets is focused on solving code problems, the design questions are not so highlighted in this one. You will learn the applying Lea’s analytical approach to almost every faced CSS-related problem and will get flexible, lightweight and standard compliant results.

The topics of the book are heavily inspired by Lea’s highly popular and acclaimed conference talks and include User Experience, Visual Effects, Transitions and Animations, Backgrounds and Borders, Typography, Structure, Layout and Shapes.

Download / Buy CSS Secrets Book

7. Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript: With jQuery, CSS & HTML5 (Learning Php, Mysql, Javascript, Css & Html5) Kindle Edition

With the help of this book you will learn how to build interactive and data-driven sites as well as combining the web standards with open-source technologies. All you have to know is just basic knowledge of HTML. As you experience through the book you will learn dynamic web programming with the help of modern core technologies such as JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, CSS, jQuery and HTML5.

Each technology can be learned separately as well as together with other ones – with any way you will be able to highlight and pick up important web programming practices during the course. By the end of the book you will build an absolutely functional social network site with the help of XAMPP or any other stack of your choice.

With the basics of object-oriented programming you will learn PHP, explore MySQL, use its mysqli Extension interface and create dynamic PHP pages that would tailor themselves to user. You will also know how to maintain a high security level with good managing of cookies and sessions. You will easily use Ajax calls for background communication between browser and server. All the new HTML5 features will be implemented with your successful efforts, with audio and video, geolocation and the canvas among them.

Download / Buy Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript: With jQuery, CSS & HTML5 Book

8. CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web 4th Edition

This tutorial can be used just as a quick CSS-related answer delivery right when you need it. Very handy, brief little book with all of the essential information for implementing CSS on the go. It is perfectly suited for intermediate to advanced developers and web designers, with all the updated info for CSS3 in this fourth edition. Here you will find the complete alphabetical CSS3 reference with a short introduction to CSS key concepts.

The reference is based on Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide and is a really useful crib of all the needed CSS specifications for any task. You will be able to find and adapt any style elements you need, discover the new CSS selectors and value types, implement multiple backgrounds, border images, drop shadows and rounded corners and get all the new info about transforms and transitions.

Download / Buy CSS Pocket Reference Book

9. CSS: The Missing Manual 4th Edition

The new, updated edition of the tutorial-based CSS instruction includes lots of modern effective tips and tricks on CSS. The book gives skills of using such fresh tools as Flexbox and Sass to build goodlooking and fast web pages suitable for desktops as well as mobile devices. Perfect for both beginners and experienced designers.

The education starts from basics, particularly writing CSS-friendly HTML with HTML5 tags that are recognized by modern browsers. Your pages will be greatly filled with animations and useful forms looking great on any device whether it is mobile or a desktop with various kinds and sizes of attached screens.

Use Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets (Sass) to work with small files and to write CSS code less and more effectively.

Download / Buy CSS: The Missing Manual

10. CSS for Babies (Code Babies) Board book

This one is unique. They can really show the importance of coding and web-design in our technological nowadays society. These books will get very young ones acquainted with the kind of colors and shapes that construct web-based programming language and give them the very basic start they need.

With this course you will be able to show your little kids the methods of a proper displaying of HTML elements with CSS and let them know the symbols and visual patterns that make up the basic web blocks. The coloured book is a beautiful introduction to web and basic coding, and would suit perfectly in a library of a progressive and technological-minded family.

Download / Buy CSS for Babies Book