Eloquent JavaScript

Marijn Haverbeke’s Eloquent JavaScript is a highly readable introduction to JavaScript programming. Start here if you've never used the language before. An excellent text, free and available online here.

The Rhino Book

The most comprehensive printed reference to the JavaScript language is the “Rhino Book,” David Flanagan’s JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (6th Edition; O’Reilly, 2011, ISBN 0596805527). It’s a good addition to an engineer’s professional bookshelf.

JavaScript: The Good Parts

Another useful book for advanced programmers is Douglas Crockford’s JavaScript: The Good Parts (O'Reilly/Yahoo Press, 2008; ISBN 0596517742). It's entertainingly written, and filled with excellent advice for writing JavaScript that takes advantage of the language's strengths while avoiding its many weaknesses. If you want to get really good at JavaScript, read this short book from cover to cover.

JSLint

Crockford is also the author of JSLint, an industry-standard utility that locates bugs and stylistic issues in your JavaScript code. Many subtle problems with the Perlenspiel engine were discovered with this handy tool. I recommend checking the “tolerate messy white space” option, or you'll go crazy. We cannot all be saints.

The Art of Game Design

If you are seriously interested in the creative aspects of game design, I recommend Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (Morgan Kaufman, 2008, ISBN 0123694965).