Rails 3 in a Nutshell, Cody Fauser, O’Reilly, 2010
A concise introduction to Rails, an overview of commands and configurations, and a guide to the parts of Rails you’ll be using every day. Read the book-in-progress online here. Sorry, it’s not yet at OPL.
The Well-Grounded Rubyist / David A. Black, Manning, 2009
Here is an excellent tutorial for Ruby. It does not cover Rails. Well written, 500 pages.
The Ruby Programming Language / David Flanagan and Yukihiro Matsumoto, O’Reilly, 2008
If you want to really understand the Ruby language, this is the book to read. Legendary O’Reilly quality, 400 pages.
The Ruby Way, 2nd ed. / Hal Fulton, Addison-Wesley, 2007
A cookbook of 400 topics, with lots of example code. 800 pages.
Ruby on Rails for Dummies / by Barry Burd, Wiley, 2007
A chatty, very approachable book. 300 pages.
Internet & World Wide Web : how to program / P.J. Deitel, H.M. Deitel, Pearson Prentice Hall 2008
This book is an excellent guide to programming web apps. Flash, Flex, PHP, Ruby, AJAX, DB’s, CSS, DOM, RSS… A colorful cover that will wake you up, and 1350 pages!!
Web application architecture : principles, protocols, and practices / Leon Shklar, Wiley, 2009
Here is a primer on HTTP, TCP, HTML, Struts, XML, Ruby, and Search. Well written, 400 pages.
Enterprise recipes with Ruby and Rails / Maik Schmidt, Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2008
You will have noticed that I like the Pragmatic series. From the contents: Implement enterprise-wide security — Process e-commerce payments — Get the most out of databases — Tame file and data formats — Process XML documents the Ruby way — Perform basic netwrkign tasks with ease — Use and build web services — Talk to message brokers — Speak foreign languages — Maintain and administer your applications — Test the easy way — Get documentation nearly for free.
Ruby Cookbook / Lucas Carlson, O’Reilly, 2006
This book is useful when you have mastered the basics of Ruby and you want to write some programs. It will help you avoid reinventing the wheel. Recommended by Matz, 850 pages.
Agile web development with Rails : a Pragmatic guide / Dave Thomas, Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2006
This book is not ‘recent’ but it is the best Rails book in the library. It is very readable and practical, with many examples. 500 pages.