# The Garbage Collection Handbook by Jones, Hosking and Moss

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/garbage-collection-handbook/

12 people recommended The Garbage Collection Handbook by Jones, Hosking and Moss in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 12 months, in 4 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

7 of the 12 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management (2nd Ed)”.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a thorough, authoritative guide to garbage collection, especially real-time algorithms. Critics object to the ebook's price and format.

Summary written by Claude from 13 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Authoritative, best-regarded book on GC (4 comments in the sample): "One of the best books available - the best book that I knew - about GC at that time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48681488)) "one of the world's foremost experts on memory management" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48693475)) "The best book about garbage collection at the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48683868))

## What people warn about

- Ebook price and format objections (3 comments in the sample): "I'd never buy that, no matter how much I wanted to read the content." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48692705)) "How on earth is the ebook more expensive than the physical copy!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48684489)) "And it's not an actual ebook." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48686328))

## Other computer science books people recommend

- [Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science by Brian Hall](https://hackerapproved.com/p/beej-s-guide-to-learning-computer-science/): 12 recommend, 3 mixed, 2 criticize
- [Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold](https://hackerapproved.com/p/code-the-hidden-language-of-computer-hardware-and-software/): 11 recommend, 1 mixed, 0 criticize
- [Code by Charles Petzold](https://hackerapproved.com/p/code/): 7 recommend, 0 mixed, 1 criticize
- [The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold](https://hackerapproved.com/p/annotated-turing/): 5 recommend, 0 mixed, 0 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Garbage Collection Handbook by Jones, Hosking and Moss", https://hackerapproved.com/p/garbage-collection-handbook/ (12 recommend, 2 mixed, 5 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.