Grokking Algorithms

Aditya Y. Bhargava

An illustrated guide to algorithms and data structures — 2nd edition.

reading4/546%29 Mar 2026

Why this one

The illustrated approach earns its title — the drawings do real work, not decoration. Binary search, big-O, and the graph chapters land faster than in denser texts because every idea gets a picture before the code.

Standouts so far

  • Big-O by feel — the runtime chapter builds intuition before notation.
  • Graphs — BFS/Dijkstra explained with worked, drawn examples.
  • Dynamic programming — the grid framing finally made it click.

More notes as I finish the back half.