There are many books on Perl and Perl-related. A few of these are good, some are OK, but many aren't
worth your money. There is a list of these books, some with extensive reviews, at
<https://www.perl.org/books/library.html> . We list some of the books here, and while listing a book
implies our endorsement, don't think that not including a book means anything.
Most of these books are available online through O'Reilly Online Learning ( <https://www.oreilly.com> ).
Themostpopularbooks
The major reference book on Perl, written by the creator of Perl, is ProgrammingPerl:
ProgrammingPerl (the "Camel Book"):
by Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall with Jon Orwant
ISBN 978-0-596-00492-7 [4th edition February 2012]
ISBN 978-1-4493-9890-3 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/9781449321451/
The Ram is a cookbook with hundreds of examples of using Perl to accomplish specific tasks:
ThePerlCookbook (the "Ram Book"):
by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
with Foreword by Larry Wall
ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003]
ISBN 978-0-596-15888-0 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/0596003137/
If you want to learn the basics of Perl, you might start with the Llama book, which assumes that you
already know a little about programming:
LearningPerl (the "Llama Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
ISBN 978-1-4920-9495-1 [8th edition August 2021]
ISBN 978-1-4920-9492-0 [ebook]
https://www.learning-perl.com/
The tutorial started in the Llama continues in the Alpaca, which introduces the intermediate features of
references, data structures, object-oriented programming, and modules:
IntermediatePerl (the "Alpaca Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
foreword by Damian Conway
ISBN 978-1-4493-9309-0 [2nd edition August 2012]
ISBN 978-1-4493-0459-1 [ebook]
https://www.intermediateperl.com/
References
You might want to keep these desktop references close by your keyboard:
Perl5PocketReference
by Johan Vromans
ISBN 978-1-4493-0370-9 [5th edition July 2011]
ISBN 978-1-4493-0813-1 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/9781449311186/
PerlDebuggerPocketReference
by Richard Foley
ISBN 978-0-596-00503-0 [1st edition January 2004]
ISBN 978-0-596-55625-9 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/9781449311186/
RegularExpressionPocketReference
by Tony Stubblebine
ISBN 978-0-596-51427-3 [2nd edition July 2007]
ISBN 978-0-596-55782-9 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/9780596514273/
TutorialsBeginningPerl
(There are 2 books with this title)
by Curtis 'Ovid' Poe
ISBN 978-1-118-01384-7
https://www.wiley.com/en-ie/Beginning+Perl-p-9781118235638
by James Lee
ISBN 1-59059-391-X [3rd edition April 2010 & ebook]
https://www.apress.com/9781430227939
LearningPerl (the "Llama Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
ISBN 978-1-4493-0358-7 [6th edition June 2011]
ISBN 978-1-4493-0458-4 [ebook]
https://www.learning-perl.com/
IntermediatePerl (the "Alpaca Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
foreword by Damian Conway
ISBN 978-1-4493-9309-0 [2nd edition August 2012]
ISBN 978-1-4493-0459-1 [ebook]
https://www.intermediateperl.com/
MasteringPerl
by brian d foy
ISBN 9978-1-4493-9311-3 [2st edition January 2014]
ISBN 978-1-4493-6487-8 [ebook]
https://www.masteringperl.org/
EffectivePerlProgramming
by Joseph N. Hall, Joshua A. McAdams, brian d foy
ISBN 0-321-49694-9 [2nd edition 2010]
https://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com/
Task-OrientedWritingPerlModulesforCPAN
by Sam Tregar
ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition August 2002 & ebook]
https://www.apress.com/9781590590188>
ThePerlCookbook
by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
with Foreword by Larry Wall
ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003]
ISBN 978-0-596-15888-0 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/0596003137/
AutomatingSystemAdministrationwithPerl
by David N. Blank-Edelman
ISBN 978-0-596-00639-6 [2nd edition May 2009]
ISBN 978-0-596-80251-6 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/9780596801892/
RealWorldSQLServerAdministrationwithPerl
by Linchi Shea
ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003 & ebook]
https://www.apress.com/9781590590973
SpecialTopicsRegularExpressionsCookbook
by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan
ISBN 978-1-4493-1943-4 [2nd edition August 2012]
ISBN 978-1-4493-2747-7 [ebook]
https://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023630.do
ProgrammingthePerlDBI
by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes
ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8 [February 2000]
ISBN 978-1-4493-8670-2 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/1565926994/
PerlBestPractices
by Damian Conway
ISBN 978-0-596-00173-5 [1st edition July 2005]
ISBN 978-0-596-15900-9 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/0596001738/
Higher-OrderPerl
by Mark-Jason Dominus
ISBN 1-55860-701-3 [1st edition March 2005]
free ebook https://hop.perl.plover.com/book/
https://hop.perl.plover.com/
MasteringRegularExpressions
by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6 [3rd edition August 2006]
ISBN 978-0-596-55899-4 [ebook]
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/-/0596528124/
NetworkProgrammingwithPerl
by Lincoln Stein
ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/0201615711/
PerlTemplateToolkit
by Darren Chamberlain, Dave Cross, and Andy Wardley
ISBN 978-0-596-00476-7 [December 2003]
ISBN 978-1-4493-8647-4 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/0596004761/
ObjectOrientedPerl
by Damian Conway
with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999 & ebook]
https://www.manning.com/conway/
DataMungingwithPerl
by Dave Cross
ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001 & ebook]
https://www.manning.com/cross>
MasteringPerl/Tk
by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
ISBN 978-1-56592-716-2 [1st edition January 2002]
ISBN 978-0-596-10344-6 [ebook]
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/-/1565927168/
ExtendingandEmbeddingPerl
by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002 & ebook]
https://www.manning.com/jenness
ProPerlDebugging
by Richard Foley with Andy Lester
ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005 & ebook]
https://www.apress.com/9781590594544
Free(asinbeer)books
Some of these books are available as free downloads.
Higher-OrderPerl: <https://hop.perl.plover.com/>
ModernPerl: <https://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/>
Otherinteresting,non-Perlbooks
You might notice several familiar Perl concepts in this collection of ACM columns from Jon Bentley. The
similarity to the title of the major Perl book (which came later) is not completely accidental:
ProgrammingPearls
by Jon Bentley
ISBN 978-0-201-65788-3 [2 edition, October 1999]
MoreProgrammingPearls
by Jon Bentley
ISBN 0-201-11889-0 [January 1988]
Anoteonfreshness
Each version of Perl comes with the documentation that was current at the time of release. This poses a
problem for content such as book lists. There are probably very nice books published after this list was
included in your Perl release, and you can check the latest released version at
<https://perldoc.perl.org/perlbook.html> .
Some of the books we've listed appear almost ancient in internet scale, but we've included those books
because they still describe the current way of doing things. Not everything in Perl changes every day.
Many of the beginner-level books, too, go over basic features and techniques that are still valid today.
In general though, we try to limit this list to books published in the past five years.
Getyourbooklisted
If your Perl book isn't listed and you think it should be, let us know. <mailto:perl5-porters@perl.org>
perl v5.40.1 2025-04-14 PERLBOOK(1)
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