"Programming the Z80" by Rodnay Zaks. I read it when it was first published, and it was the first real programming book I'd ever read.
I'd written programs before this, inventing my own language and hardware, then emulating the hardware to have it do things like playing tic-tac-toe and Conway's Game of Life. It was slow, but served me in good stead when I built my first real computer from NAND gates, and then subsequently working in safety critical hard-realtime embedded systems.
"The Applesoft Basic Programmer's Reference Manual"
I was around 10 and my parents bought a used Apple II and this book came with it. I thought it was the coolest thing to make a program, even if it was super basic. I wish I would have kept the book, my parents ended up throwing out the book and the computer a few years later.
My parents got it for me when I was very young, and (if memory serves correctly) it had some program listings in BASIC in the back of the book. I must've typed them into our Apple IIe computer and started to learn programming by modifying the code.
[As for being introduced to C, the book "Using C" by Clint Hicks from Que Publishing is what helped me get started and get my head around the concept of pointers. I have tons of programming books now, but that one has a very distinct crack down the spine from regular use.]
I'd written programs before this, inventing my own language and hardware, then emulating the hardware to have it do things like playing tic-tac-toe and Conway's Game of Life. It was slow, but served me in good stead when I built my first real computer from NAND gates, and then subsequently working in safety critical hard-realtime embedded systems.