Beginner's Guide to Game Animation Programming

Well worth picking up if you already have the basics.

I have been working with game development for a few years now and I still found plenty here that was new to me. The author avoids over-explaining, which keeps the pace up but means you need to pay attention. The writing is direct and does not waste space on filler, which I value in a technical book. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

The clearest explanation of game development I have come across.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.