Here's a list of some of my favorite books:
Software Development
Dynamics of Software Development by Jim McCarthy
Extreme Programming Adventures in C# by Ron Jeffries
Design Patterns by Gamma et. al.
Code Complete by Steve McConnell
ASP.NET
Essential ASP.NET by Fritz Onion
ASP.NET Unleashed by Stephen Walther
.NET
Essential .NET Volume 1 by Don Box and Chris Sells
SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Performance Optimization and Tuning Handbook by Ken England
This blurb is taken from “Dynamics of Software Development” by Jim McCarthy. If you don't have this book, buy it now! I believe this is the best book on delivering great software - thought-provoking, entertaining and still very relevant after 9 years. I''ll be taking more quotes from this book over time.
“If QA feels its charter is to test the product that Development has created - or Development is convinced that its job is to create a product that QA then tests - some alarm bells should go off. This common set of misapprehensions often results in alienation - elitism among the developers and a ghetto mentality among the “testers” - not to mention poor-quality software. QA's principal function - and it is a principal function - is to continually assess the state of the product so that the rest of the team's activities can be properly focused. QA's ongoing assessment is integral to the act of software creation, not an ex post facto event. ... the goal of QA is to support the product development process by providing an ongoing induction of reality.”