The Only 3 Books You’ll Ever Need To Learn The MERN Stack.

The MERN stack is a web development stack made up of four technologies that work together to create a full-stack web application. MERN is an acronym that stands for Mongo DB, Express JS, React JS, and Node JS (the technologies that make it). If you are reading this post, you most likely already have some knowledge of what The MERN stack is; hence, I won’t go into the specifics of it in this article.

However, if you wish to know more about the web development stack, check the MongoDB article called What Is The MERN stack which explains what it is, how it works, why you should learn it, and an overview of the technologies that make it up. The post is going to reassure you to learn the MERN stack if you were not sure or to convince you if you doubted it. I also do; but now you’re looking for the best books to learn it, you’ve come to the right place. The MERN stack may be cool and amazing, but you don’t have to waste your resources to learn it. You only need three books. This post is going to show you the 3 best books that you need to learn the MERN stack.

I’ve arranged these books in the order I think you should read them, with the first on this list being the one you should start to read. If you’ve never read a programming book before, or you struggle finishing them, then check out my guide on how to read programming books so that you can get the most out of these MERN stack books. Let me know what you think about this list or come back later after finishing one of them to let me know what you think about the book.

Let’s get into it.

Table of Contents

• Quick List: Best MERN Stack Books.
• Best MERN Stack Books -Top 3 List -.
• Beginning MERN Stack: Build and Deploy a Full Stack MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js App
• MERN Projects for Beginners: Create Five Social Web Apps Using MongoDB, Express.js, React, and Node
• Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node
• Conclusion: 3 Best Books To Learn The MERN stack.

Quick List: Best MERN Stack Books.

Below is a list of the three best books to learn the MERN stack:

1. Beginning MERN Stack: Build and Deploy a Full Stack MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js App
2. MERN Projects for Beginners: Create Five Social Web Apps Using MongoDB, Express.js, React, and Node
3. Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node

Best MERN Stack Books -Top 3 List -.

In this section, I’ll get into the details of what each book covers, the breakdown of the chapters, and some more information about the book, like the number of pages and the Publisher of the book.

Beginning MERN Stack: Build and Deploy a Full Stack MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js App

If you know nothing about the MERN stack, that is, you have never worked with MongoDB or Express JS, React, or even Node JS before, then this is the perfect book for you. The book assumes that you know nothing more than the most fundamental programming concepts. Therefore, it walks you step-by-step through the process of constructing a Movies review web app, beginning with the very basics and ending with the deployment of the finished project to the internet. It starts off with MongoDB, NodeJS, and Express, then React JS.

The book is divided up into manageable chapters, so reading it won’t be too daunting for the average reader. Check out how to read programming books to get even more tips if you’re an average reader. With only 136 pages, the book has got 26 chapters which means each chapter is made up of around 5 pages. Here is what you’ll cover in each chapter:

1. Chapter 1 offers a basic introduction to the MERN world. You’ll learn things like what makes up the MERN stack, how to set up a MERN stack web app, etc.
2. In chapter 2, you’ll learn more about the Mongo database.
3. In chapter 3, you’ll set up MongoDB Atlas Cloud Database.
4. Chapter 4 walks you through adding sample data to the database you just created.
5. In chapter 5 you’ll be introduced to NodeJS and Express; you’ll set up the backend of the website.
6. In chapter 6, you’ll create the backend server.
7. In chapter 7, you’ll create The Movies Data Access Object.
8. Chapter 8 helps you create the Movies controller.
9. In chapter 9, you’ll test your Backend API.
10. In Chapter 10, you’ll create the functionality for users to leave Movie Reviews.
11. In chapter 11, you’ll test the Reviews API.
12. In chapter 12, you’ll create a route for a single movie and its ratings.
13. In Chapter 13, you’ll start learning about React JS.
14. Chapter 14 walks you through creating a navigation header bar using React.
15. In chapter 15, you’ll create the routes.
16. In chapter 16, you’ll connect the react frontend to the backend.
17. In chapters 17 and 18 you’ll create a MovieList and Movie components respectively.
18. In chapters 19 to 20, you’ll deal with listing, adding, and editing Movie reviews.
19. In chapter 22, you’ll create the functionality to delete a movie review.
20. In chapters 23 and 24, you’ll deal with pagination.
21. In chapter 25, you’ll deploy the backend on Heroku.
22. And finally, in chapter 26, you’ll host and deploy the React frontend.

And that would be it for this book. When you have finished reading this book, you will be familiar with the foundations of developing a web application using the MERN stack. You can now venture into creating your own projects with the MERN stack or build upon the book’s provided knowledge by reading more books on this list.

Here is more information about the book:

Amazon Rating:	4.4/5	My Rating:	5/5
Author:	Greg Lim	Number of Pages:	136
Year Published:	2021	Publisher:	Independently published
Best For:	Best MERN stack book for beginners	*

MERN Projects for Beginners: Create Five Social Web Apps Using MongoDB, Express.js, React, and Node

This project-based MERN stack book will teach you how to utilize the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express JS, React JS, and Node JS) by leading you step-by-step through the process of constructing 5 real-world web applications (nearly every page has got a screenshot).

You will begin by developing a ➊dating application (sounds fun, doesn’t it? ), then a ➋video sharing application similar to Tiktok, then a ➌messaging application, then a ➍photo-based social application similar to Instagram, and ultimately a full-featured ➎social media application similar to Facebook.

You will acquire a significant amount of knowledge as you work through the process of developing these web apps using the MERN stack. This includes setting up the many technologies that come together to form a MERN project, social authentication, Redux and React Hooks, Heroku, and Firebase. At the conclusion of this book, you will be able to construct your very own web applications from the ground up by utilizing the MERN stack.

This book is divided into 6 chapters, here is a quick glance at what each chapter covers.

1. In the first chapter, you’ll learn how to set up a MERN stack development environment.
2. In Chapter 2, you’ll build a dating web app that has chat functionality and other amazing features.
3. In the third chapter, You’ll then create a vertical video-sharing app like Tiktok.
4. In the next chapter (chapter 4), you will learn how to build an awesome messaging web app. Users will be able to chat in real-time, as well as log in to their account using Google authentication
5. Next (In chapter 5), you will create a photo-sharing app like Instagram
6. And finally (In chapter 6), a social media web app like Facebook with the ability to post images with captions and log in using email and password authentication.

As you can see, there is so much there is to learn about the MERN stack that you’ll get from this book. Unlike the first book though, the author recommends the reader to have a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, Javascript, and its front-end framework React JS.

Below is more information about MERN Projects For Beginners:

Amazon Rating:		My Rating:	5/5
Author:	Nabendu Biswas	Number of Pages:	296
Year Published:	2021 (first edition)	Publisher:	Apress
Best For:	Best Project Based MERN stack book.	*

Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node

After you’re done with the first two best MERN stack books, this book will work as a reference for when you’re creating your own MERN projects from scratch. Pro MERN Stack is also geared towards providing MERN knowledge to developers who are coming from other web development stacks like MEAN, MEVN, etc. With that being said, the book focuses on teaching React more than other components of the MERN stack as it assumes the developer already knows them from the previous stacks. But do not worry about that though, if you’re not from any other stack, Vasan also argues that this is because the front-end contains more code than other parts of the web application.

Although I said this book can be used as a reference, it is actually structured in a tutorial-like format where you’ll build one single project from the beginning to the end. Here are some things you’ll learn as you build the issue tracking web application:

1. In addition to React, you will also use React Router, React-Bootstrap, and GraphQL to create the project in this book.
2. Learn the fundamentals of MongoDB, Express JS, and Node JS to create a web application.
3. You’ll also make use of technologies like Webpack and Babel to construct JavaScript-based single-page web applications.

Unlike the other 2 books in this list of MERN stack books, Pro Mern Stack also has got questions and answers at the end of each chapter.

Amazon Rating:	4/5	My Rating:	5/5
Author:	Vasan Subramanian	Number of Pages:
Year Published:	2019(second edition)	Publisher:	Apress
Best For:	Best MERN stack book for professionals and developers coming from other stacks.	*

Conclusion: 3 Best Books To Learn The MERN stack.

Those, my fellow developers, were the best books to learn the MERN stack. With these books alone, you’ll get from complete beginner to professional MERN developer.

These books, I’ve personally read myself and I think they are the best to learn the MERN stack from. There may be a lot of books out there that cover topics on the MERN stack and for sure I haven’t heard of some. So if you happen to have a MERN stack book that is not on this list but you think actually qualifies to be on the list of best MERN stack books, then let me know about it in the comments section below.