Most people learn HTML and CSS backwards. They jump into tutorials, memorize syntax, and wonder why their websites still look amateur six months later.
Worse yet, they just try to vibe-code their way into HTML proficiency. It’s not the way!
I spent years working with HTML, and I can tell you that if you want to build actual comprehensive understanding of HTML and CSS, then books are the way to go.
The problem isn’t effort. It’s that beginners waste time on outdated advice while experienced developers miss the books that could sharpen their skills.
This list covers 10+ books that teach HTML and CSS the right way in 2025. Some are perfect if you’ve never written a line of code. Others will push you past basic layouts into professional-grade work. I’ve included who should read each one and why it deserves your time.
These books won’t just teach you tags and properties. They’ll show you how to think like someone who builds websites that people want to use.
Best books on HTML and CSS for all skill levels in 2025
1. HTML and CSS: The Comprehensive Guide – by Jürgen Wolf
First on our list is one of the newest entries into the field. Released in 2023, this is a book of epic proportions. Filled with over 800 pages of expert knowledge about HTML and CSS, and also containing an intro to JavaScript, author and web developer, Jürgen Wolf, leaves no stone unturned.
If you’re a blogger or a content creator, this book will help you keep your pages up to date with easy-to-follow guidance about HTML and CSS.
For those who’ve worked with previous versions of HTML and want to understand its role in modern websites, then this book is indispensable. In contemporary web design, HTML is primarily used for structuring content, while styling and layout are handled by CSS. This book focuses on how to effectively use both of them for a more sophisticated, standards-compliant approach.
2. Murach’s HTML and CSS: Training & Reference 6th Edition – by Zak Ruvalcaba, Anne Boehm, Mary Delamater
The latest edition of Murach’s HTML and CSS guidebook was released in 2024, making the advice extremely relevant to modern web design. This book teaches HTML and CSS from scratch. It starts with an eight-chapter crash course that walks you through basic tags and styles up to responsive layouts. You’ll learn current techniques like flexbox, grid, and media queries for sites that work on phones and desktops.
The format is what makes Murach books different. Each page splits into two columns – examples and code on the right, explanations on the left. You can learn straight through or jump around to specific topics like forms or images when you need them.
People like how straightforward it is. The book won’t teach you everything – web tech moves too fast for that. But it covers the core skills you need to build decent websites. Good for absolute beginners or anyone who needs to refresh outdated knowledge.
3. HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites – by Jon Duckett
Next up, we’ve got an Amazon bestseller by Jon Duckett, a renowned web designer and developer with over two decades of experience.
In this book, he tries to make HTML/CSS less intimidating by using simple but colorful infographics and screenshots to illustrate otherwise complex concepts. The layout itself is satisfyingly minimalistic, and you should have an easy time following along from cover to cover.
Overall, the book covers all the basics of HTML/CSS. You get to learn how to build a website from scratch, how to work with the languages on both macOS and PC, as well as how to design various website elements. There are also well-labeled screenshots of the text editor, showing the code examples with nice color formatting.
This book has earned more than 4,800 reviews to this day with a 4.7+ rating, which is one of the highest scores in the entire genre.
4. Pro HTML5 Programming: Powerful APIs for Richer Internet Application Development (Expert’s Voice in Web Development) 2nd ed. – by Peter Lubbers, Frank Salim, Brian Albers
This book is more on an intermediate-to-advanced side of the spectrum. It focuses on HTML5’s modern APIs rather than basic HTML or CSS fundamentals. The assumption is that you already know HTML and want to take a deep dive into modern features like WebSockets, Canvas, audio/video, and other elements.
The current second edition updates WebSocket coverage to match modern standards and adds new chapters on drag-and-drop and SVG.
Readers praise its practical examples and good level of detail when explaining various concepts. This is useful for developers who want to understand what HTML5 adds to the mix.
The teaching style is mixed. Early chapters seem to prioritize examples over systematic API explanation. Later chapters move to a clearer “explain then illustrate” approach.
Overall, this works best for developers already comfortable with web development who need a comprehensive tour of HTML5 capabilities. Complete beginners should start elsewhere with basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript tutorials first.
5. HTML and CSS QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginners Guide to Developing a Strong Coding Foundation, Building Responsive Websites, and Mastering … of Modern Web Design – by David Durocher
Quite the title, I must admit. But, I guess that’s understandable considering all the stuff that David Durocher covers in the book.
Apart from HTML and CSS basics, you’ll find helpful notes on CSS styling, CSS elements, and HTML tags, as well as step-by-step tutorials on how to fit everything together to form an adequately responsive website.
You will, for instance, learn how to design, structure, and organize website gradients, sprites, forms, multimedia, images, fonts, and formatting. What’s more, the book provides insights into markup best practices, plus relevant practical examples of how to debug and update websites.
Also worth noting, this book remains the #1 best seller in CSS programming category on Amazon – in case you needed one more reason to get it.
6. Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS: Build future-proof responsive websites using the latest HTML5 and CSS techniques 5th ed. – by Ben Frain
When it comes to UI design, you might want to get yourself Ben Frain’s “Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS“. It happens to be one of the few best HTML/CSS books that exhaustively discusses user interface responsiveness across desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.
This has also had its fifth edition released in 2025, so you can bet it packs only the freshest advice and methods.
Right from the first page, the author engages readers in a relaxed and non-formal tone, while he walks them through all the HTML/CSS elements that affect website usability. You will, for instance, find chapters dedicated to CSS Grid, CSS Scroll Snap, font loading, variable fonts, user accessibility, plus much more.
It doesn’t stop there, though. The book provides further tips on developing animations, transformations, transitions, grid layouts, media queries, and other CSS front-end customizations.
7. Head First HTML and CSS: A Learner’s Guide to Creating Standards-Based Web Pages – by Elisabeth Robson & Eric Freeman
If you’re tired of all the technical jargon in HTML/CSS forums and tutorials, this is the book for you. Eric Freeman and Elisabeth Robson collaborated to create a one-of-a-kind book that explains pretty much everything about static web page construction in a simplistic manner.
Instead of giving you the information in huge technical chunks, the book walks you through the principles just like a teacher would in an actual classroom. It systematically and incrementally reveals how you can apply HTML/CSS to all your web pages – while, at the same time, providing relevant graphics as guidance. The book has earned more than 800 reviews with the average rating of 4.6.
8. A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS: Learn it faster. Remember it longer – by Mark Myers
I risk it sounding cliche, but this one is more than a book. Though in this case it’s quite literally. Mark Myers takes the learning process a notch higher by including interactive exercises. Instead of just reading about HTML/CSS, you also get to practice everything online.
Sounds confusing? Okay, this is how it works. At the end of every chapter, the book directs you to a practice site where you’ll find questions in the form of interactive exercises. You’re supposed to answer everything correctly before proceeding. And in case you enter an incorrect answer, the system will redirect you to the question until you get it right.
9. Get Coding! – by Young Rewired State
If you’re in the market for the best HTML and/or CSS books for kids, you might want to check this one out. The book itself is authored by Young Rewired State, a global tech community composed of teens and kids. And yes – that’s precisely the same audience it targets.
Now, the good thing about this book is, it doesn’t stop at HTML/CSS. Rather, it goes beyond that by additionally helping kids with JavaScript coding.
Also, you’ll notice that the text used is simple enough for even eight-year-olds to understand. The book walks them through the three programming languages from scratch, before gradually transitioning to the tough topics. By the end of it all, the readers should have developed the basic skills for building websites, games, and apps using CSS, HTML and JavaScript.
10. Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics – by Jennifer Robins
Imagine learning HTML/CSS from the most experienced web designers in the world. Well, that’s precisely what you get from this book.
You see, Jennifer Robins has been building websites since 1993. That alone makes her one of the very few pioneers in web design, and one of the most experienced veterans on the globe.
And so, by reading this book, you can bet that you’ll be gaining decades-worth of insights into not only HTML/CSS, but also JavaScript. These are the three core languages that you’ll need to build a modern website.
Now, to be specific, the book shows you how to set up HTML pages with forms, tables, images, links, and text. Then when it comes to CSS, you get to find out how to apply it to animation effects, page layouts, text formatting, backgrounds, colors, and so forth.
Once armed with this knowledge, you be perfectly placed to complete your knowledge stack through the best PHP books.
11. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript All in One: Covering HTML5, CSS3, and ES6, Sams Teach Yourself – by Julie C. Meloni and Jennifer Kyrin
Speaking of HTML/CSS and JavaScript, another comprehensive resource for both beginners and advanced coders is Meloni and Kyrin’s “HTML, CSS, and JavaScript All in One”. You can think of it as the ultimate guide that’ll get you started with the three fundamental web development languages.
Basically, the book explains just how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript work together in contemporary web development, and then proceeds to provide well-organized step-by-step tutorials on how to leverage the three technologies simultaneously.
You’ll even find HTML5, CSS3, and ECMAScript 6 principles expertly integrated into each chapter. This is intended to teach you how to apply them to various contexts of web design.
12. CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web – by Eric A. Meyer
As you start getting used to working with CSS, you might find yourself stuck from time to time. To help you when that happens, last on our list of books is Eric Meyer’s “CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web.” It comes in real handy.
You can think of this as a quick reference guide, created specifically for intermediate to advanced web developers and designers. It provides answers to all the common queries about key CSS concepts, properties, and selectors. That includes even the latest trends on composing, filtering, masking, flexbox, clipping, animations, etc.
Your favorite of these best HTML/CSS books
And there you have it. The 10+ best HTML/CSS books on the market today, perfect as a gift for the designer or developer in your life. You can go ahead and check them out on Amazon.
While you’re at it, though, keep in mind that most of these books come in multiple editions. So, you might want to confirm that you’re purchasing the latest version before committing further.
And with that, we wish you a happy reading!
Are there any other interesting books about HTML/CSS that we missed? Let us know in the comments below.
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Layout and presentation by Chris Fitzgerald and Karol K.
All of these books are dated, some more then a decade ago. Times have changed.
Maybe some good pointers or references?