The Kotlin programming language is a free, open-source, statically typed “pragmatic” language originally designed for the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) and Android that combines aspects of functional and object-oriented programming. Since Google announced Kotlin as a new language for Android at last year’s Google I/O conference, many people have been interested in studying it. Here is a list of the most recommended books to learn Kotlin for beginners and advanced developers.
1. Kotlin in Action by Dmitry Jemerov and Svetlana Isakova:
Kotlin in Action teaches us how to use the Kotlin language for production-quality applications. The book is written for experienced Java developers. This example-rich book extends further than most language books, covering interesting topics like building DSLs with natural language syntax. This book would be a perfect choice for someone who is new to Kotlin. It will describe what this language is and how we can use it.
2. Kotlin Blueprints by Ashish Belagali, Hardik Trivedi, and Akshay Chordiya:
This practical guide is aimed at programmers who already know Kotlin. This book is for those who are familiar with Kotlin and want to put their knowledge into practice. It covers the various libraries and frameworks used in the projects. As part of this course, we’ll build a social media aggregator application for tracking multiple feeds efficiently, develop a geospatial web service with Kotlin and Spring Boot, develop responsive web applications with Kotlin.
3. Learn Kotlin Programming: A comprehensive guide to OOP, functions, concurrency, and coroutines in Kotlin 1.3 by Stephen Samuel and Stefan Bocutiu:
The book covers installation, tools, and how to write basic programs in Kotlin. We’ll learn how to implement object-oriented programming in Kotlin and easily reuse your program or parts of it. To build robust apps, the book discusses DSL construction, serialization, null safety, and type parameterization. In addition, it explains how to destructure expressions and write them yourself. The course then explores advanced topics such as testing, concurrency, microservices, coroutines, and Kotlin DSL builders that are required to build scalable apps.
4. Mastering High Performance with Kotlin by Igor Kucherenko:
The book ‘Mastering High Performance with Kotlin’ is an excellent resource for Kotlin learners at the advanced level. There are ten chapters in this book. This book covers topics like identifying performance issues, indicators, thread profiling, time complexity, delegation classification, and possible pattern practices.starts by analyzing various Kotlin specifications to identify those that have a potentially adverse effect on performance.
5. Head First Kotlin: A Brain-Friendly Guide by Dawn Griffiths and David Griffiths:
This hands-on book helps us to learn the Kotlin language with a unique method that extends beyond syntax. We’ll cover everything from language fundamentals to collections, generics, lambdas, and higher-order functions. This will give us an opportunity to learn both object-oriented and functional programming. The book is for anyone who needs to know Kotlin well.
6. The Joy of Kotlin by Pierre-Yves Saumont:
Learn to create comprehensible, easy-to-maintain, and safe Kotlin programs with The Joy of Kotlin. The seasoned engineer Pierre-Yves Saumont shares his insights on how to approach common programming challenges with FP’s fresh perspective in this expert guide. The examples cover how to handle errors and data properly, manage state, and take advantage of laziness.
7. Kotlin Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide by David Greenhalgh, Josh Skeen, and Andrew Bailey:
This book shows us how to work effectively with Kotlin through hands-on examples and clear explanations of key Kotlin concepts and foundational APIs. This book is relevant to developers of all levels – whether they are proficient or not – and whether they are interested in using Kotlin on Android, the server-side, or on multiplatform projects. Kotlin application developers will possess the skills required to create reliable, concise applications at the end of this book.
8. Kotlin – at a Glance by Saxena and Swati:
The book “Kotlin at a Glance” provides in-depth knowledge about the Kotlin programming language and its comparison to Java. Through reading this book, readers become familiar with the language’s most significant features and aspects. Reading this book does not require any prior Kotlin knowledge, as the book explains the basics. It also explains the necessary concepts of functional programming. In this book, readers will also learn how to write Android apps using Kotlin. Moreover, the book is useful for anyone aspiring to become a developer.
9. Programming Kotlin: Create Elegant, Expressive, and Performant JVM and Android Applications by Venkat Subramaniam:
https://amzn.to/3uacWZr
The book is designed for programmers, lead developers, architects, and technical managers. Kotlin beginners will find this book helpful in getting started with the language and working with it quickly. The book covers the basics of Kotlin as well as more advanced concepts. This book will aid us in mastering one of the few languages that we can use for the entire full stack – from servers to mobile devices – in order to create performant, concise, and easy-to-maintain applications.
10. Head First Android Development: A Learner’s Guide to Building Android Apps with Kotlin by Dawn Griffiths and David Griffiths:
A killer Android app isn’t difficult to build with this fully revised and updated edition. Learn how to think like an Android developer by moving beyond syntax and how-to guides. The book explains how to design user interfaces, build multiscreen apps, and persist data in a database. The latest features of Android Jetpack, including Jetpack Compose, are discussed.
11. Programming Android with Kotlin: Achieving Structured Concurrency with Coroutines by Pierre-Olivier Laurence, Amanda Hinchman-Dominguez, G. Blake Meike, and Mike Dunn:
There are many books that explain how Android works, how Kotlin works, or how concurrency works. Kotlin has become wildly popular with Android developers for its easy adoption and cleaner syntax, but Kotlin offers Android developers much more than that: it offers new ways to solve Android concurrency problems. This book aims to provide a detailed analysis of the intersectionality between these topics. Kotlin and Android are rapidly changing, both separately and together. Staying current can be difficult. As a checkpoint in Android’s history, this book shows where Android came from, where it is now, and how it will continue to evolve as Kotlin grows.
12. Kotlin Design Patterns and Best Practices: Build scalable applications using traditional, reactive, and concurrent design patterns in Kotlin by Alexey Soshin:
Design patterns are well-known solutions to common architectural problems as they help solve many problems efficiently and create a shared vocabulary among developers. This book illustrates how easy it can be to implement traditional design patterns in Kotlin’s multi-paradigm programming language and explains the new patterns and paradigms that have developed. The book focuses more on the idiomatic usage of coroutines, which have become a stable language feature. The book also provides a detailed explanation of the classical design patterns, including Creational, Structural, and Behavioral families, before moving on to functional programming.
13. Kotlin for Android Developers: Learn Kotlin the easy way while developing an Android by Antonio Leiva:
The purpose of this book is to teach us all the new features Java was missing, in an easy and fun manner. As this is a very practical book, it is recommended to follow the examples and the code on a computer and try everything. The book is not meant to be a language reference, but rather a tool for Android developers to learn Kotlin and then continue their own projects independently.
14. Kotlin In-Depth: A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Multi-Paradigm Language by Aleksei Sedunov:
The purpose of this book is to guide the reader through the capabilities of the Kotlin language and to give examples of how to utilize it for the development of various applications, whether desktop, mobile or Web-based. The book begins by explaining the language and its ecosystem and introduces us to the Kotlin tooling and basic language syntax as well. This book is intended for Java and JVM developers and for those who want to get a firm grasp of Kotlin while having little or no experience with it.
15. Pro Android with Kotlin: Developing Modern Mobile Apps by Peter Späth:
Make Android apps with Kotlin, which is a more elegant programming language than Java. The book discusses the various aspects of an Android app that professionals are likely to encounter. All major aspects of the Android platform are covered, including GUI design, file- and data handling, multimedia apps, interaction with location and mapping services, and monetizing apps.
16. Kotlin Cookbook: A Problem-Focused Approach by Ken Kousen:
Get started with Kotlin by building Android apps, web applications, and more while learning the nuances of this popular language. Developers will be able to learn how to apply this Java-based language to their own projects with this unique cookbook. The practical recipes in this book will benefit both experienced Kotlin programmers and new Kotlin programmers.
17. Learn Kotlin for Android Development: The Next Generation Language for Modern Android Apps Programming by Peter Späth:
Create Android apps and learn the basics of Kotlin programming. In this book, we will learn how to create your very own Android apps using the key Kotlin skills and techniques. In addition to introducing Kotlin programming, Learn Kotlin for Android Development emphasizes clean code principles as a starting point for developing Android apps. With the help of this book, we’ll have the foundation to create our own Kotlin-based Android apps.
18. Learn to Program with Kotlin: From the Basics to Projects with Text and Image Processing by Tim Lavers:
Discover one of the most popular programming languages today, Kotlin, starting from the basics. This book introduces just enough syntax to get into some fascinating projects after covering the absolute basics.
There is text processing: analyzing Jane Austen’s novels, solving anagrams, and working with palindromes; image processing: cropping and resizing images, and pixel transformation; and computer vision: parsing images, figuring out digits, and understanding speed signs.
19. Kotlin Quick Start Guide: Core features to get you ready for developing applications by Marko Devcic:
Kotlin is a general-purpose, object-oriented language that targets primarily the JVM and Android platforms. As Kotlin is a new language, this book will help us to learn its basic features in order to develop applications with it. This book includes details on Kotlin features and explains them with code examples. The basics of the language will be covered, including functions, variables, and data types.
20. Functional Kotlin: Extend your OOP skills and implement Functional techniques in Kotlin and Arrow by Mario Arias (Author), Rivu Chakraborty:
Functional programming speeds up your application, improves performance, and increases productivity. Kotlin provides many of the popular and advanced features of functional languages. This book presents Kotlin’s functional programming system from A-Z. Kotlin developers can use this book to understand and create functional constructs in Kotlin while bridging the language gap. As a result of reading this book, we will have a better understanding of functional programming and will be able to apply these skills to coding in Kotlin.
Conclusion
The Kotlin books that we have gathered make learning Kotlin almost effortless. We hope you’ve found this useful in learning a new language. Now, it’s time to pick the one that best fits your needs and start learning.