Why is everyone so focused on programming language specific books? Even when I was in uni before stack overflow I did not find them that useful. All reference docs were already online.

However the theory books are still worth reading, if you read any of the intro Tanenbaum books from cover to cover you know the subject far better than everyone not directly working in the subject (and probably more than many that do).

Doing any kind of mildly-complex parallel programming code without having a theory book about it fresh in your head should be a crime.