Knuth books are some good books to use. You might also want to pick up some O'Reilly books if you're looking for specific languges ( Esp. Perl ). They've got a great section on Perl programming. I even got my Advanced Perl Programming book signed by Tim O'Reilly. As well as scoring about 5 free books from them...they're a good company.
The beatings will continue until morale raises.