Review by Billy Barron

"The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Second Edition" by Lindholm & Yellin (Addison-Wesley; ISBN 0-201-43294-3) updates the specification for Java 2. The web site for the book can be found here.

First Edition

"The Java Virtual Machine Specification" by Lindholm & Yellin (Addison-Wesley; ISBN 0-201-63452-X) is the official guide to what's under the hood. Most people (myself included) do not need this book, but it is useful for those needing to do very low level work in Java. You might also take a look at "Java Virtual Machine" by Meyer & Downing as an alternative to this book (they seem to be equal in quality).