The basics & mindset:

About Face 2.0 by Alan Cooper  is an excellent start to putting oneself into the UCD (User Centric Design) mindset.  The process and tools around persona development are also invaluable.

Learning fundamentals & history:

Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge  is a pretty amazing book.  It covers the history of interaction design, along with his own design philosophies. Plus, it includes a DVD of interviews with design luminaries.

Designing for Interaction by Dan Staffer is a relatively new book on interaction design.  I’ve just picked it up and am working my way through.  It focuses on great interaction design – essential for any good UX.

Sketching the User Experience by Bill Buxton is one of those transformational books out there.  It really can just start with a pen an paper.

Gathering requirements, testing and ideation:

Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky is the best survey of user research / prototyping tools around.  It’s a fantastic resource for testing the prototype designs, using contextual inquiry to help determine the design.

Serious Play by Michael Schrage  is a great book about the importance of prototyping in general.  This is more of a business book – in specific about making prototyping central to driving innovation at your company.  That said, prototyping represents a great opportunity for UX.  Prototyping is particularly important when designing UXs – imagining how the design will feel isn’t enough!

Thinking more broadly:

The power of innovation by Dr. Min Basadur is a book I haven’t read, use his teaching extensively.  It is a really powerful way to get out of your own way when trying to develop new solutions to complex problems.  Garry VanPatter and Elizabeth Pastor (of NextD and Humantific) are also in the same school of thought in their innovation facilitation work.

Systems Thinking by Jamshid Gharajedaghi is one of those breath-takingly smart books.  This is another business book, but great for thinking about the broader context of the User Experience (there are no mono-causal problems, after all).

Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling is a design manifesto.  It’s focused on the changing relationship between users and the products they use.

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam.  For anyone who’s ever needed to conceptualize, demistify or solve a complex situation, Dan’s book gives you a tool box of simple visualization techniques that will be invaluable to you.

Ongoing education & Online resources:

AskTog’s First Principles – an essential reference of interaction design principles that we should all have committed to memory.

Usability in the News – great round-up of all the latest UX related postings online

NextD – online journal focusing on the what’s next in design

Functioning Form – great design blog

Looks good works well – another great design blog by Bill Scott, Netflix’s Director of UX Engineering.

Boxes and Arrows – an information architecture / interaction design focused web magazine

Interaction Design Association – Interaction Designers Association.  Mostly a mailing list, but a great community resource