Cursed Book: The Literature Of Pain

Someone asked for books that made people cry, and a programmer responded with "Data Structures and Algorithms in Java (2nd Edition)." Nothing says emotional trauma quite like trying to implement a red-black tree at 2 AM while questioning your career choices. That book doesn't just teach you Java—it teaches you the five stages of grief, with the final stage being acceptance that your code will never be as efficient as the textbook examples.